Third Time Lucky
by Spades 44
Summary: L enters another afterlife, fights crime, eats cake, and attempts to find the love of his life. Along the way, he meets a lot of mass murderers from his past. Some are more welcome than others. Features most characters from the DN canon. Sequel to Second Chances - does not stand alone. Matt/Mello. L/Light. Some other pairings.
1. Interchange

notes/warnings

+ this fic is a sequel to another of my fics, Second Chances. it does not stand alone, and it will not make any sense unless you read Second Chances first (a link to Second Chances can be found in my ffn profile).

+ the premise is this: a slight death note au where the dead do not go into nothingness, but are transported to a mundane afterlife-type place called the 'second world', or to hell. characters that die in the second world, or that escape from hell, end up in the 'third world'. this fic is set in the third world. pretty much everyone is in it.

+ because this is a long, involved, case-filled fic, there will be many minor own characters (as L can't just go on catching the five or so criminals from canon over and over again). however they will exist to complement and support the canon characters, and will never be the main focus of the story or the plot. some own characters may turn out to actually be canon characters in disguise.

+ as with before, I promise that no own characters will hook up with canon characters.

+ overall warnings: bad language, some amount of mindfuck, occasional violence, character death, and just bad puns in general. I will put specific warnings before every chapter.

+ this chapter is, in some respects, a prologue. it is setting the scene for a lot of future events.

* * *

**Interchange**

* * *

L lands on his knees, in the middle of a crowded bus interchange. He inhales slowly and flexes his arms, testing his body.

It still works.

There are people all around him, and they all look relatively ordinary. A short woman hurries past, nearly falling over him, fussing with her cell phone.

"Welcome," she calls, as an afterthought.

So. There are people here. And phones. There does not seem to be any imminent danger, at least in this place.

A man steps over him. He's tall, with lank black hair and a milkshake in one hand. He has a tattoo of a scorpion on one arm, and a faint outline of a crucifix on his forehead. He doesn't look at L, he just hurries straight by.

L gets up, and getting up is easy, reflexive, the same as it ever was. L smiles, because this is what he wanted. A similar world, where he can live a similar life. Where he can find Rae and they can solve crimes forever.

Assuming crime is still common in this world, of course.

_Okay, one thing at a time._

L scans around him. The buses are red. One of them reads _London Express_. It is likely that he is in the same geographic location as when he died.

Something is wrong, though. The world looks different. Fundamentally _different_. L frowns, and makes his way decisively towards the exit. He sees a young boy lift a wallet out of somebody's handbag, and makes a note of that, too.

_Crime still occurs, here_. _Nothing has changed._

L climbs the stairs easily. His body feels better than it did before, as if he has gotten younger again. And maybe fitter.

He reaches the top of the stairs, and gazes around. The sun is setting unremarkably against a scarlet-coloured sky. He is standing in the middle of a large, busy city. The buildings around him stretch up to eighty floors apiece. There are too many people to count.

It isn't raining here, but a thin mist obscures the horizon in all directions.

Someone touches his shoulder and L whirls around, arms raised, ready for a fight. He finds an elderly-looking woman with a big smile and curly black hair. In the past minute, L has seen at least a hundred people, but she is the first one who actually looks old.

"Hi," she says, stepping back, deliberately making herself non-threatening. "I'm Elka. I'm guessing you just came through?"

She has a big yellow name badge pinned to her shirt. L smiles at her.

"You are a welcomer?" he says.

"There's a place I can take you to," she tells him, nodding. "The British government funds a hotel just down the road. Newcomers are allowed to spend three nights there while they settle in. You get a working phone and everything. It helps a lot of people sort their lives out, and contact the ones they love."

L cannot go to a free hotel. He can't go where people might be expecting him. He has at least one enemy in this world, maybe a lot more than that. He has to find a different place to stay. And he has to do it with no phone, no money, no identity cards, and no friends.

There isn't anything in his pockets. L is on his own.

"No, thank you," he says. "But I appreciate the job you do."

"Where will you go?" Elka asks.

L gazes around again, squinting. It doesn't matter what he does, the wrongness is still here. It is in everything, the people walking, the mist, the buildings, Elka, his own hand, everything.

This world _looks_ different. Better spaced, somehow. Like watching a film with those ridiculous red and green glasses, and…

_Oh_.

L raises his hands to his face. Lips. Nose. Left eye. Right eye. Both eyes.

Of course. He is healed. He has his depth-perception back. The world isn't different. The world is _normal_.

"I'll find somewhere," L tells Elka.

Then he grins fiercely, turns on his heel, and heads towards the centre of the city.

Everything is going to be fine.

* * *

Roderick Pearce checks his equipment one more time, then wanders over to his garage to select his preferred escape vehicle. Roderick isn't like those _ordinary_ criminals. Oh no. Roderick has style, Roderick has staff, and above all, Roderick has money.

But what he wants, more than anything, is attention. Roderick _loves_ attention. He loves attention almost as much as he loves speaking in the third person about himself.

Roderick is planning to siphon millions of dollars from a London bank. He has the allegiance of one of the Big Four hackers, a person known only as Fivenine. But even though he could just stay home while the transfer takes place, he's going to go and stand _in the bank_. In his best silk shirt, his top hat, and his four thousand dollar slacks.

What's the point of being evil if you can't be famous too?

* * *

Things don't stay fine. L finds a cheap but secure hotel room in the basement of a casino. The receptionist says he can pay the bill when he leaves. Then he stares at his empty room and wonders what he ought to do.

Last time, when he died, Watari was right there with him. L didn't have to worry about accessing funds, or having a safe place to stay. He just went right back to solving crimes. But now he's hungry and alone and vulnerable, and he wants his butler-guardian back.

Or Mail. Or Raye. Or anyone.

L perches on the edge of the uncomfortable hotel bed, and switches the television on. He is looking for crimes. He is looking for clues as to where Rae might be. He is looking for clues as to _who_ Rae might be.

And he is looking for information about this place. A person can never be too well-informed, and right now L really isn't any sort of informed.

So he watches the television, program after program. And he learns that the third world has earthquakes, and disasters, and poverty, and corruption, and ridiculous puff pieces about pop idols. He learns that the casino above him has a reputation for being the most-robbed venue in London. He learns that Ireland has been completely assimilated into England. He learns that religious people are considered a minority in this world.

And, exactly six hours after his arrival, he watches a feature article on the mysterious detective known as L, and how L has been catching criminals in the third world for years.

* * *

In Roderick's taunting notes to the public, he refers to himself as a supervillain, Roderick the Great. His crimes are numerous and varied, but they are all utterly dramatic. A murder here, a kidnapping there, a bit of blackmail, and lots of theft.

He parks his car gracefully, and hopes out with a flourish and a little jig. Nearby are two police officers, a tall weedy blond one, and an Asian one who doesn't meet his eyes. Their badges are clearly visible and Roderick immediately knows that they're from the Southwest Police Beat. Roderick waves to them mockingly, knowing full well they aren't allowed to arrest him just for being obnoxious.

_Be fabulous, and never get caught_. That is Roderick's motto. Well, his other motto is _argh I put my purple shirt in with my yellow shirt and now I have two purple shirts oh the humanity_, but that's only because he's still learning how to do laundry.

Roderick doesn't suppress an evil cackle as he dances into the bank.

This will be his finest hour yet.

* * *

L's immediate thought is _Light_.

His next thought is _please not Light_.

His third thought is _I don't even know if Light is here. Surely Light wouldn't have gotten out of hell. Is there a tracking library somewhere?_

He needs internet access. He needs a phone, at the very least. And for that, he needs money.

He needs to go upstairs and exploit his knowledge of which particular poker machines can be reliably bested with the correct technique. Then he needs to go and buy cake. And a decent disguise.

And then he can worry about the most evil criminal the world has ever seen.

One thing at a time.

* * *

"This is the best fucking burger I have ever tasted," Edison says, sniffing reverently at the lump of bread and meat in his hand. "Seriously, the greatest thing about being a cop is that the fast food places serve you straight away."

Edison is new to the police force, only just out of the academy. He's also incredibly naïve, because he's so new that the work hasn't broken his spirit yet. And he's so new to their team that Sergeant Stanton hasn't broken his spirit yet.

Teru Mikami tucks a strand of hair behind his ear, and wonders if Edison is secretly incredibly resilient. He's always suspicious of nice people. He's suspicious of everyone who reminds him of himself.

_Understanding that you are a monster is the first step to not being a monster_.

Kylie said that, and she's pretty much his only other decent colleague. Teru doesn't actually have any friends. He doesn't let himself have friends. He keeps his fringe long to hide the mark, and he doesn't let anyone get close to him.

_I killed so many people._

_And then I killed that little girl_.

"Do you want a bite?" Edison asks, shoving his beloved lunch in Teru's face.

"I eat fried rice for lunch," Teru reminds him.

"Oh," Edison replies. "Huh. What did you think of that guy who just paraded past? He definitely looked like he was up to something. Maybe we should go back and check it out?"

"I don't know," Teru replies.

He doesn't know anything any more.

* * *

And the days go on. L hustles and saves up a few thousand dollars and buys himself a fake driver's licence. He also buys a veritable truckload of boiled sweets, some new clothes, and a believable mask and wig. He buys some cake mix, and fails so spectacularly that he hides the spattered packages in the garbage and promises himself never to think about baking again.

He scans the news every night for anything unusual, anything that might indicate a person with a super-powerful notebook. His research is inconclusive. The imposter L solves three cases, and broadcasts a short, gruff message promising to apprehend a dangerously annoying criminal known as Roderick the Great.

The Roderick case isn't as simple as it looks. The man has friends, money, and credibility. He keeps his hands clean, despite his ridiculous nature. And he seems to have at least five lawyers on standby. Fake-L needs to find hard evidence.

L feels a stab of jealousy. He wants to be solving cases, too. Now that he has stability, he needs credibility. He needs to find this pretender and win back his own mantle. Win back his own damn _name_.

Unless, of course, this pretender is Light. In which case, maybe L shouldn't be so quick to challenge him while vulnerable and alone.

Ideally, L won't come across Light until he has Rae by his side. And where _is_ Rae, anyway? It should be looking for L just as hard as L is looking for it. Illogically, L had just assumed they'd find each other easily once they were in the same world again. But L doesn't know the first thing about Rae.

_I don't even really know your preferred pronouns_.

Statistically, since there are more straight or bisexual women than gay or bisexual men, Rae is most likely female. L resolves to refer to Rae as 'she' from now on. Using 'it' seems disrespectful now that Rae isn't actually around.

L needs to find Rae before Light finds him. Hopefully, of course, Light never makes it out of hell. But L's mother escaped from hell, so L no longer has faith in Jas as a mechanism for containing evil.

And there doesn't seem to be a tracking library in this third world. Nobody knows who is in and out of hell. L wonders if it was always this way, or if Jas removed the library and all memories of it when she destroyed her own powers of omniscience.

As a priority, L needs to locate the owner of the notebook paper and stop them.

L shoves three sweets into his mouth at once and crouches on the ground, in front of his shiny new laptop. The sun is shining through his one, tiny window. He has a purpose and an internet connection and enough money to get by.

He doesn't have Rae and he doesn't have a team but, right at this very moment, he is okay.

* * *

The third world is more beautiful than the second world. In the third world, the sun shines, even when it is raining. But at night, the mist makes the shadows longer, and darker, especially in London.

Some people say the shadows have a life of their own.

In the darkness, shadows move.

In the darkness, Shadow moves.

But that's okay, because she hasn't found L.

Yet.

* * *

When L goes to the lobby to pay for the last week of accommodation and a second week in advance, there is a new receptionist behind the desk. She has dark eyebrows and a turned-up nose. On her forehead is a faint, crucifix-shaped mark. The end of it sits right between her eyes.

He's seen that mark before. He noticed it on a handful of people in the city when he first arrived. He saw it on a trucker at the casino last night. He saw it on the six o'clock Indonesian news anchor.

_What does it mean?_

_Are you all part of a religion? A cult? A trend?_

_Or is it the mark of a disease?_

"Thanks for paying early," the receptionist says, flashing him a brief smile. The name on her badge reads _Winters_. It's probably her last name.

"No problem," L replies. Their hands touch when he passes her his ill-gotten money, and he thinks maybe she might be flirting with him.

"Sorry."

God, L feels so _old_.

And then a flashy-suited man sweeps into the lobby. He is wearing magenta-coloured pants. And a cape. He is, almost inarguably, Roderick the Great.

"Hello, unimportant person," he says, pushing L dramatically aside and approaching Winters.

"Listen, love," he purrs. "I have a message for you."

"Who are you?" she asks, backing away.

"I am RODERICK," says Roderick. "And I just wanted you to know that sometime over the next five days, I will be sneaking into the fantastic casino upstairs. And you won't even know I'm there until it's too late."

"Is that a threat?" Winters asks, tilting her head.

Roderick leans in towards her. L takes the knife from his sleeve, concealing it carefully with his hand. This man is a dangerous man.

"I would act a little more frightened, if I were you," he says. "I'm important. Look me up."

And then, without any further ceremony, he leaves.

Winters jumps over the desk and rushes to the door.

"You shouldn't follow him," L says.

"It's okay, I'm safe," Winters replies. "I'm studying criminology, actually. Trying to work my way into the FBI. But I'm guessing someone like Roderick won't leave any clues when he intends to have an audience."

"Why are you telling me this?" L asks.

"You were watching him the same way I was watching him," she says. "You were looking for evidence."

Of course. Every stupid fucking kid wants to be a detective. And in this world, the detective they want to be is usually L.

And even L hasn't figured out who L is yet.

"Crime fighting isn't a game," L says, tiredly. The last thing he needs is some wannabe making things difficult. What if she decides to start investigating him? That might be uncomfortable when he has so few resources. "Go home."

"But," she says, "I wanted to talk to you-"

"Go home," L says, and goes back to his room.

He has better things to do. He needs to figure out a way to tap into the casino security cameras, and soon.

* * *

Winters hurries home, arms folded, bag slung over her back. She lives on the other side of town, and the walk takes about forty minutes unless she cuts through Gladville.

She cuts through Gladville as often as she can. The streets here are long and abandoned, the sidewalks are in disrepair. The houses are old, boarded up, paint peeling. An uninformed person would assume that nobody lives here.

But if that were the case, Gladville wouldn't be considered the most dangerous place in London. People do live here, inside the boarded-up houses. This is where the worst criminals live, the mass murderers and the terrorists. Gladville is where you live when you dare not show your face to the public.

Walking through Gladville is pretty much asking to get murdered. But Winters has been a freelancing agent for forty years. She may not be a famous superdetective, but she's capable and clever and brave. She's been tracking Roderick for weeks and she's collecting evidence against him. Today she managed to get something amazing, a sample of his saliva. For a mastermind, he really needs to get less excited when talking. If she can get a match between his DNA and the hair from the scene of the last robbery, she can finally prove it was him.

There are footsteps behind her, but Winters doesn't turn around. She knows what a human sounds like when they walk, and they don't sound like that. Gladville is overrun with stray cats. She isn't worried and she isn't scared.

She's tough. She has to be tough, to get through life with a first name like Raechyael. It's pronounced Rachel, but spelled like the midwife was having hand spasms while typing out the birth certificate.

"Nyow," says a particularly pretty grey cat, pushing past her leg.

"Uh huh," Winters murmurs.

That man at reception was definitely a fellow detective. And he got a good look at her, too. She ought to have worn a mask today after all. She can't trust anyone. Roderick has tonnes of money, and agents everywhere.

He doesn't know about her, though. He's too focused on L.

And that is her safety.

* * *

If there's one thing Roderick hates, it is presumptuous little shits who don't treat him with respect. Especially if, after hacking into their personal files, he finds that they're actually a fucking spy who have fucking _files_ on him.

This isn't about L or fame or greatness. This is just about revenge. And winning.

Roderick wears full body armour and waits in an alley. And when Miss Ridiculously-named Winters passes by, he shoots her three times in the chest. She falls down dead without so much as a protest.

Roderick leaves her body for the vermin. She didn't have any friends and she didn't have close family. He is going to see to it that the world never even knows she existed, much less that she came close to beating him.

Roderick is going to be the most memorable villain of all time, and nothing is going to stand in his way.

* * *

'_Why do people have crucifixes on their foreheads'_ L types into a search engine. It generates fifteen thousand results, with the most popular one being a link to an online encyclopedia. The article is called '_God marks_'

God marks? L clicks on the link and reads.

'_God marks are permanent, non-removable marks on the foreheads of some people in the third world. The presence of a mark means that the bearer has been through hell and proved themselves worthy of a second chance. Some academics argue that the presence of the mark proves the existence of a god. However the existence of a god has never been proven and is largely scientifically unsound.'_

Huh. L had not considered that possibility. So the marks denote people who have passed their test. Good. That will narrow down his search for Rae, at least a little.

L turns his attention to trying to hack the surveillance system. He uses some of the programming tricks Rae taught him in their last few weeks together.

_When I find you again, we are going to do so many things_.

They will both be human and free and together and safe, and nothing in the world will be able to stop them. They will be literal superheroes.

L can't wait.

* * *

"Good job letting a wanted criminal get away," Deputy Sergeant Daniels says, smirking. "You know, if it were up to me, you'd be off the force. If it were up to me, you'd be locked up."

Daniels tells Teru this at least twice a day. Usually while standing over Teru in a threatening sort of manner. And always when nobody else is around.

"Yes, sir," he replies, dutifully.

"Say it fucking louder," Daniels barks.

"Yes, _sir_!"

Daniels glares down at him for another few seconds before walking away.

"You're scum, Mikami," he says, quietly. "I know it and I'm going to prove it."

"What are we proving?" Kylie asks brightly from the door. "Sorry for interrupting, but you guys are running late for the video conference, sir."

Kylie never really got the hang of talking to senior officers, and seems to think that just stapling 'sir' or 'ma'am' to the end of every sentence is sufficient.

They walk to the conference room together. Edison has to stay behind to supervise the cells. The rest of them are expected to attend. The chief of police has an important message for them, a message that she's delivering to everyone in the country.

The old Teru would have been excited, but the new Teru is just exhausted.

They arrive in the conference room at exactly three seconds past three.

"You're late," Sergeant Stanton deadpans.

"Sorry, ma'am," Teru says, bowing his head.

"Hey, don't worry about it," Sergeant Berkshire says warmly. "Come and sit down. It's not often we get to have the two Southwest teams together."

"Yeah. We should be discussing criminal apprehension strategies," Kylie pipes up. "Er, I mean, we should be discussing criminal apprehension strategies, sirs and ma'am."

"We will be discussing only what the chief wants us to discuss," Stanton replies.

Kylie has this running theory that Stanton is actually a robot. She's pretty much convinced Edison, too. Teru doesn't tell them that in the second world, sometimes people really _were_ robots and monsters. He doesn't tell them that that was a terrible thing, and not cool or funny.

The television screen buzzes to life, showing a picture of Chief Gabriel Mills. Her red hair is tied behind her head, and her uniform is flawless. She has been the English chief of police for just two months, and the crime rate has already fallen by 2% in that time.

Mills is a force to be reckoned with.

"Ma'am," Teru says respectfully, and salutes in unison with the others. Stanton salutes twice as hard as anyone else.

Sometimes Teru really misses being a lawyer. He hates the hierarchy of the police force. He hates that he has to defer to the idiots and bullies around him. He hates that he will never be able to climb the ranks, that he'll probably always just be a uniformed officer.

But this is how things have to be. He will never let himself have power. He will never let himself become a danger to others ever again.

He remembers.

"I have an important announcement to make," Mills says. "Recently, our police force has allowed itself to be compromised and exploited by certain civilians. This is both a drain on our resources and a blow to our integrity."

_What is she even talking about_? Teru wonders.

Then he wonders if Stanton will berate him for thinking something disrespectful.

"Therefore," Mills continues, "from this moment onwards, all officers are hereby banned from supporting, working with, or otherwise assisting the detective known as L."

Teru looks up so quickly that his glasses slip halfway down his nose.

_What?_

_No!_

* * *

L gives up on hacking the surveillance system, having found something far more useful: a floor plan of the casino.

There are just two entrances and one emergency exit, all situated on the same side of the building. There are no windows, and there is an alarm system set up to go off if anyone breaks through the walls or the roof.

_How did this building ever pass inspection?_

Still, it doesn't matter. There is only one way Roderick can enter and only one way he can leave. Now all that remains is for L to go into the casino, and stay in a place where he can monitor all three doors.

L takes his gun and his knife. He slips a tiny video camera behind his ear. He takes a wad of cash, stuffed into his brand new leather wallet. He needs to be seen to be gambling, because he needs to blend in.

And he needs to be careful. An evacuation in a place like this is going to be huge and disastrous, crushing. L needs to obtain evidence and keep everyone safe. And he needs to stay awake for the next five days straight, without seeming suspicious.

In short, he needs to capture a dangerous criminal with limited funds, limited equipment, limited hacking ability, and little knowledge of the world around him.

Life will be so much easier once L finds Rae.

* * *

Roderick is mad. Roderick is really fucking angry.

First the ridiculous Winters girl, and now _this_. Some blonde bimbo on a popular social networking site has dedicated an entire website to _slandering_ him.

Roderick wrings his hands wrathfully and glares at his computer screen.

'_Lol Roderick is the WORST seriously he can't even stick with one type of crime how pathetic is that.'_

'_I don't even know why L is wasting his time on this loser.'_

' _I have never met anyone this desperate for attention who wasn't actively on fire.'_

'_Pretty sure Roderick means loser in whatever language Roderick is from.'_

And the worst thing is that she's drawing other people into her ridiculous little hate campaign. There's a notes feed that allows other site users to comment on Roderick. And their comments are vile.

'_Just saw his latest note on television. Yawn.'_

'_Lol Roderick lol.'_

Roderick doesn't tell Fivenine. Getting rid of people who mock and threaten him is Roderick's own personal business. The networking site is easy to hack. In twenty minutes, Roderick has all of this woman's information. Louise Ingleton, twenty-nine, waitress and college drop-out. She works at a trendy café called Deliciousyum Foodstuff. She lives in Moore, 8 Crank Road, Unit 11. She lives alone. On another of her personal sites, she complains about not having any friends.

She's isolated, stupid _and_ tasteless.

But she's getting a lot of hits online, and Roderick can't have anyone spreading such filthy disgusting lies about him. He's killed eight people like this, on the side, out of the public view. Nobody knows it's him. Nobody would expect the magnificent Roderick to stoop so low.

And soon, he'll be so famous that he won't have to.

Roderick selects his gun and his outfit with equal, dedicated precision.

_Dressed to kill_.

And then he goes to clean the world of a little bit of its infinite supply of scum.

* * *

No, this is terrible. Teru remembers L. L _saved _him. L saved him and a fucktonne of people in the second world. L stood against Light in the first world, and even the thought of Light makes Teru sick to his stomach with shame and fear.

He believes in L. He's downloaded every single news program that discusses L's exploits. He owns every book that mentions L. L is a force of good, in Teru's mind. To alienate him from the entire police force is both counterproductive and demoralising.

"Yes, chief," Stanton says, without hesitation, beaming as if she's been living her whole life just for this moment. "Understood. I will see to it that none of my team so much as speaks to an agent of L. I will-"

"Yes, very good," Mills says busily, turning to stare at Berkshire.

"With all due respect, chief," Berkshire drawls, slowly, "it seems like a bit of an unusual request."

Teru perks up, just a little. Berkshire is generally both perceptive and morally functional. Teru's dearest hope is to one day transfer into Berkshire's team, if only Stanton would allow it. If anyone is going to defend L, it will be Berkshire.

Mills doesn't frown. She manages to convey anger without actually changing her facial expression. It's kind of similar to Stanton's talent for scolding people without ever changing her tone of voice.

"Is there a problem, Sergeant Berkshire? To uphold law and order in this country, we need to work as a _team_," Mills says, emphatically.

That is definitely a threat. Teru tries to catch Berkshire's eye, panicked. Now isn't the time to protest, no matter how much they want to. If Berkshire gets discharged, this whole place will report to Stanton.

"And I am part of that team," Berkshire tells Mills smoothly, with forced enthusiasm. "Put me down as agreeing heartily."

"Very good," Mills replies.

Teru grinds his teeth and doesn't say a word.

* * *

"There are two types of gambling in this place," says a bearded man who can barely keep from sliding off his bar stool.

L nods and pretends to be engrossed in his words, while surreptitiously checking the doors.

"Tell me about them."

"There's one type, like you an' me, who comes here with money to play the games and machines. And that type of person be a fine type of person. You can always trust someone who comes to a casino with their pockets full."

"Of course. Everyone who ever gambles within those extremely broad parameters is always unfailingly trustworthy," L says.

"Right, right," Beard agrees. "But there's another type of someone who comes here with their pockets empty, and it's them that you gotta watch out for, because they're after the easy pickings."

"Thieves?"

"Damn right, thieves," Beard hollers, banging his glass against the table. "I got two hundred bucks lifted right out of my pocket last night. Didn't even see the sneaky bastard."

He suddenly seems to sober up enough to both grab L's shoulder and keep his head off the table.

"So you gotta be careful, lad. Don't let anyone come near you."

"Understood," L says. "Thank you for the very reasonable and useful advice. To change the topic, have you heard about Roderick's latest escapades?"

"That's what I'm _trying_ to tell you," Beard wails. "Everyone knows he's threatening to show up in this here place. The police won't do anything about it, _because this place is full of gamblers and thieves. _People like to think they're superior to us type of people."

"I didn't realise the force had publically refused to do anything," L says, filing that information away for later. "What can you tell me about the police force in this country?"

Beard grins broadly.

"Have you got an hour or ten?" he asks.

"I definitely do," L replies.

* * *

Roderick picks the lock to Louise's apartment. It proves to be only slightly more difficult than picking his own nose. Not that he would do anything so inelegant, of course.

The place turns out to be a bedsit, cluttered and dirty and ugly. Louise lies motionless, sprawled on a single bed. She rouses when he enters the house, moaning and propping herself up on her elbows. She looks like a highschool cheerleader, with cascading blonde hair and skinny legs and big, confused dark eyes.

"Who's there?" she calls into the darkness, staring confusedly around the room and then fixing her gaze in entirely the wrong direction.

Roderick raises his gun and pulls the trigger.

Bang, bang, bang.

* * *

This house looks like a cross between a high-end surveillance room and the inside of a dumpster. The floor is littered with food wrappers, filthy clothes, and the occasional dead animal. But on one wall is a series of screens that would make Fort Knox weep with inanimate jealousy.

Every single closed circuit television camera in London feeds into this house. The screens change every ten seconds, displaying snapshots of the scenery. Displaying just-recognisable snapshots of thousands of people. Nobody is safe. Anyone who stands in this room for long enough will eventually see every single person in London.

But one of the screens is different from the others. The feed is permanent, clearer, and changing slowly, as if someone is holding a camera very low to the ground and pushing it along.

This screen is marked 'Shadow'.

* * *

Roderick stuffs his gun back into his pocket. Louise collapses back onto the bed, as dead bodies are wont to do.

And then, as dead bodies are less wont to do, she rolls over and extends one arm in Roderick's direction, a pistol in her palm.

"Didn't anyone ever tell you not to shoot a sleeping person?" she asks. "Especially not if they're wearing body armour."

Roderick freezes on the spot.

"No," he says, instantaneous denial. "You couldn't possibly have prepared for this. You couldn't have known I'd come."

"Well, I have been researching you," she says. "Your weakness is your pride, and all those people you killed on your own. I figured you'd come for vicious little Louise. You're surrounded, by the way. There are police officers all around the building."

Roderick smiles. He knows when he's outsmarted. Time to get out of here.

"Nobody can aim well when lying down," he says. "I'd have my gun back in my hand before you even pulled the trigger."

Not-Louise smiles at him.

"Try me," she says.

Roderick tries her, and she shoots his gun clean out of his perfectly manicured hand.

* * *

"You okay?" Berkshire asks, waiting back just so he can talk to Teru. "You seem down, son."

"Why wouldn't I be down?" Teru asks. "After what happened yesterday, I'm having a hard time mustering any enthusiasm. The whole Northwest team got reprimanded for helping L, and they were only arresting London's most wanted criminal."

"Well, politics are politics," Berkshire agrees. "You and I are just tiny cogs in the big factory of the police force. But we still go out every day, keeping people safe, arresting criminals and fighting crime. You can't lose sight of the bigger picture."

"What about the slightly larger cog that is Sergeant Stanton?" Teru asks, lowering his voice. Berkshire is the only person he can talk to about this.

"Ah well, I'm sure she's all right, deep down," Berkshire replies, sounding entirely unconvincing.

"Right."

"Anyway, what matters is this," he says, winding one arm around Teru's shoulders. Nobody has been affectionate to Teru Mikami in a very long time. "Whether we work together or separately, you and me and everyone in the force and all of the private detectives are going to keep making this world better. And one day…one day we're going to make this world _good_."

"Yes," Teru replies. "Yes, okay."

It's a good thought.

* * *

When he gets the news that Roderick has been arrested by fake-L with solid evidence, L half smiles to himself. At least his imposter is doing a good job. And at least now, the casino will be safe.

L goes back to his room, and back to trawling the news.

He doesn't really know what else to do.

* * *

"_Let's play a fun game," Dwayne suggests. "It's called Throw Used Tissues At Each Other. Could be a laugh."_

"_I hate you," you tell him, without looking up from your notebook._

_You're still trying to write stories that don't make any sense. You're still fat, you're still useless, and you are still hated by everyone who knows you except Matt._

_You're still in love with Matt, you're still alone, and you don't believe in angels._

_Nothing has changed. Everything is the same._

_You are so, so tired of being alive._

* * *

L goes back to the casino every day. He finds different people to talk to, and learns new things about the third world. On Wednesday he meets a woman with bright orange glasses, who recounts for him fake-L's latest exploits. L isn't as unimpressed as he expected to be.

On Thursday he sits with a young man – only sixteen – with a cross between his eyes and a dapper bow tie. His face goes pale when L brings up hell, and he refuses to talk about what he went through.

"But it sucks afterwards, too," he tells L. "I mean, the god-mark stops famous criminals from getting thrown back in jail just for what they did in the first world, but it also means everyone knows you did some terrible shit."

"Is there any way to get rid of it?" L asks.

The boy snorts.

"Not unless you get a whole new face stitched on," he growls. "Bandaids and makeup just dissolve if you place them over the top of it. If you get a skin graft it grows right back with the new skin. The only thing to do is grow your fringe long."

So the mark actually has some passive supernatural powers. That is…oddly terrifying.

_Why are you doing this? What do you hope to gain by branding people in this way?_

"And that's not the worst part," the boy continues. "The worst part is what the hell-god tells you before you get sent back here."

L tilts his head. So people in hell know about Jas, at least to some extent. Interesting. Does that mean she has less power in this world than the second?

Well, perhaps that doesn't matter. She has less power now, L knows that for certain.

"What does she tell you?"

"That if you fuck up again – if you murder even _one person_ – then you end up straight back in hell. Permanently. There are no second chances for someone with a god-mark."

"Interesting," L replies.

* * *

On Friday he pretends to be drunk, and makes friends with a truck-driver who has a tattoo of Light's face on her biceps, over the words _never again_.

"He was the most evil fucking bastard the world has ever seen," she says.

L learns that hating Light Yagami is an international pastime. He sleeps well that night, better than any other since he arrived.

* * *

On Saturday, L ends up in a useless conversation with a young couple who only want to talk about cats.

"Bengals are my favourite," says the young man. "They're so _smart_."

"No way," says the other young man. "Siamese are the best. They're loyal and very clean."

L turns to the bar to order another cocktail-with-all-the-juice-and-sugar-hold-everything-alcoholic. But when he moves, he feels something slightly odd in the general region of his pocket. He reaches out, lightning fast, and snatches the thief's hand before they can get his wallet into their bag.

"I don't think so," L says quietly.

The thief is a tall woman, with bubble-gum coloured hair and too much makeup. The young couple haven't even noticed L's predicament, too busy arguing about whether striped cats are better than spotted cats.

"You have ten seconds," L says, "to explain why you targeted me, out of all the people in this part of the casino."

He touches his gun with his free hand. He doesn't want trouble, but he may have gotten it anyway. The woman doesn't seem concerned by being caught, and that in itself is unnerving.

"Let me tell you what's going to happen," she drawls. "I'm going to ask you one question. And then, you are going to let me go. And then I'm going to give you back your wallet, and walk out into the parking lot and get in my ride and go home."

L stares at her. She knows something about him. But that doesn't mean she knows who he really is, and that doesn't mean he is without an escape route. L scans the surrounding crowd. Nobody else seems suspiciously alert.

L closes his hand around the gun.

"Ask your question," he says, carefully.

"This is a dive," the woman says. "I mean, this is actually the worst casino in London. The drinks are expensive, the food is inedible, most of the games are rigged, and the company is unenjoyable. I mean, like, what is a boy like you doing in a place like this _anyway_?"

Everything grinds to a halt on her last few words. L feels like he is suspended underwater. Because of course. Of course she is. She was _always_ better at disguises than he was.

_Mary Kenwood_.

_Wedy._

"Looking for trouble," L says, releasing her arm.

"Good," Wedy says.

Then she turns and disappears into the crowd.

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n

+ thank you for reading

+ update times: I am really not sure about the frequency of updating. I am hoping to have another chapter up in two to three weeks. we shall see!


	2. Reunion

notes/warnings

+ here have a little bit more fic.

+ warning for people saying fuck a bit.

+ warning for the story still being character-driven and setting-the-scene-ish in this chapter. plot coming really soon, I promise.

* * *

**Reunion**

* * *

Wedy exits the casino, and approaches a nondescript white car. Nobody is following her because nobody has noticed her. She blends in perfectly everywhere she goes.

She knocks daintily on the side of the car.

"Hey, partner," Aiber says easily, rolling down the window. "What happened? I thought you were meeting up with Anthony?"

"I cancelled on Anthony," she tells him. "I found something more important."

Aiber frowns.

"You're not in trouble, right?" he asks.

They have a signal for when she's in trouble. Wedy and Aiber have signals for practically everything. They've been working together on and off since they were teenagers, sometimes on the side of the law, and sometimes very opposite the side of the law. But even they don't have a signal for '_we found that guy we thought we'd never see again'._

"I'm not in trouble," Wedy replies, rolling her eyes, because seriously she is way too cool to be hanging out with Aiber. Just _look _at them. He is wearing a tartan thing over another tartan thing. She is wearing boots with diamonds in the heels. "Something good has happened."

And right now, Wedy is really pleased with herself. She is _always_ brilliant, but she is occasionally also very very lucky. And she hasn't been so excited since that time she stole the crown jewels and mailed them back to the queen piece by piece, just to prove she could.

"Something good?"

"I found L."

Her boss is going to be thrilled.

* * *

One of the screens on the wall briefly displays footage from a casino parking lot. It shows one Mary Kenwood and one Thierry Morello – better known as Wedy and Aiber – waiting in a car. Then the screen flicks over to an abandoned alley, channelling a different feed.

The person in the room gets out of bed. He's seen them before, of course. They sometimes operate from the London area, and they're not smart enough to figure out that the whole town is bugged. But it doesn't hurt to keep an eye on them. He's keeping an eye on all L's associates, just in case.

He reaches for the radio.

"Fifty-one," he says.

Then he shoves the radio in his pocket and crawls back to bed and pulls the pillow over his head.

* * *

L leaves the casino a few minutes later, through a different door. And a car pulls up in front of him and inside is Wedy and Aiber. Aiber! Aiber who he hasn't seen since the first world.

_I've done it_, L thinks. _I have finally made it home_.

He goes stumbling into the car, and sits in the back seat and draws his knees up to his chest. And Aiber starts the engine and they pull out of the parking lot, and L has dozens of things he wants to say to both of them.

But he really ought to start at the beginning.

"I am sorry that I got you killed, Wedy," he says, quietly.

"That's ridiculous," Wedy says calmly, without even looking around. "You had nothing to do with my death."

L nods, even though he doesn't really believe her. He doesn't know what to do or where to look. He is overcome. He had never really truly considered the possibility of seeing his oldest colleague again. And now, here she is with someone _else_ he knows, and what is he supposed to even do?

"How are you?" he manages.

"Totally fine, honey," Wedy says, smoothly. "I've been keeping myself busy with work and a bit of thieving on the side."

"And shopping," Aiber interjects.

"Shopping is important to me," Wedy retorts. "I wouldn't expect _you_ to understand."

"I thought shopping was when you paid for the things you bought," L says, momentarily caught up in the banter. Wedy and Aiber were the first two fellow geniuses he ever met.

"I'm all legit now," Wedy croons. "I've got a new boss and everything. _Anyway_, we're both fine. The third world is just fine, as long as you stay away from the cops and the Big Four."

"I'm legit, too," Aiber adds, copying Wedy's accent perfectly.

"What is the Big Four?" L asks. He's heard that phrase used before during a couple of different news programs. "And where are you taking me?"

"To meet my boss, of course."

L shifts on the seat, examining the car doors and considering his options. He likes Wedy very much, and he feels even more compassion for her now that he has learned of her horrible childhood, but he really doesn't want to meet whichever mobster has bought the better half of her loyalties.

"Who is your boss?"

Wedy sighs.

"You know, I think you've gotten even more boring than when we last met," she says, filing at an already-perfect nail with an implement that looks like it could probably slay a leopard seal at fifty paces. "Who is the only person I have _ever_ worked for?"

"I feel like you intend that to be a rhetorical question," L says.

He wonders if Aiber keeps any desserts in this car. It's obviously Aiber's car since it isn't black, red, or shiny.

"L," Wedy tells him. "I work for L."

L feels his throat go dry.

"And who is that?" he asks, softly.

* * *

"I heard about the police force in England," President Whiffle says in what he probably thinks is an empathetic tone of voice. "It is my personal opinion, sir, that they are being imbeciles. Cutting of their own nose, and all that."

"What do you want?" the detective currently known as L asks. Whiffle must need a lot of help, to waste so much time on pleasantries.

"Some sensitive files have been tampered with," the president says, the jovial tone vanishing from his voice. "We are currently holding a convicted terrorist at a secure facility. Unless we release him, they will make the files public."

"Then this is the work of a cyber criminal."

"But not necessarily one of the Big Four," Whiffle pleads. "Please help us, sir."

This L doesn't take on the Big Four. Nobody does. Nobody can. They are the four most skilled hackers in the world, they are completely anonymous, and their only true peers are each other.

Of course, maybe the _real_ L would take on the Four. This L is just a placeholder. Nobody knows that, of course. It's not like she ends her notes to the public with a signature block saying 'preferred: cases that can be solved by being objectively clever or shooting stuff'.

"It is definitely the work of Hangman," she says into the voice filter. "I recognise their modus operandi. You know full well I can't help you."

"Then you damn all of us, sir," Whiffle says, dramatically.

Whiffle is kind of a ridiculous person.

"Not really," she tells him. "I also have it on good authority that your convicted terrorist wasn't given a fair trial. I suggest you release him."

Hangman is actually generally fairly decent. They're something of a human rights activist. Naomi has learned to treat their actions with a healthy dose of respect. She does what she can to get by without access to the real L.

The president hangs up quite deftly. And like clockwork, Naomi's mobile phone starts buzzing on the desk. Which is a little troubling, since Wedy isn't due to check in for another few hours.

"What is it?" she asks, pressing the phone to her ear. "Wait. _What_?"

* * *

"The Big Four are an elite class of hackers," Aiber says, cheerfully. "Nobody knows who they are or where they are located. They cause a lot of problems for a lot of people, and they're universally feared and respected. They are known by their online handles: Hangman, Viv, Volution and Fivenine."

L stays very still, barely listening to Aiber's words.

_Naomi Naomi Naomi Naomi Naomi_.

His deputy. He is actually really going to get to see her again. He is going to maybe even get to work with her again. She is posing as him and she caught Roderick and she upheld his good reputation all on her own and he is so proud of her.

"Oh wait," Aiber babbles. "Viv was replaced. Now it's Hangman, Nocks, Volution and Fivenine. Which is good because I used to get confused between the two V's."

"The Big Four don't really cause too much trouble," Wedy says. "And I'm relatively confident I could find any one of them if they caused us too much trouble."

"Thank you," L says.

He doesn't have Rae, but he has never felt less alone in his life.

* * *

And then they pull into the basement of a nondescript high-rise building in an unremarkable inner London suburb. And L thinks this is perfect, this is exactly what he would have chosen to make his base.

L is out of the car before they have even come to a complete stop. The others lead him to across the cold cement garage floor for several paces. Wedy speaks into a small device set into the wall, and the wall proceeds to slide away to reveal a smaller room. And then they step into an elevator and ride to the forty-eighth floor and climb a set of stairs and L takes note of every retina scanner, every lock, every clever security measure that guards this wonderful place.

"This is the same colour scheme as our other office," he tells Wedy. "Oh, and that chair looks like my favourite chair."

"Sure, honey," she says. "The décor is really damn exciting in this place."

And then he reaches the bottom of another set of stairs, and a woman wearing a balaclava emerges onto the landing at the top.

"Stop," she says, briskly.

L thinks his grin might actually split his face in half.

_There you are._

"I'm sorry to do this," Naomi continues – because she is definitely Naomi, "but I need to be sure. If you really are L, tell me the details of my death."

She has a gun in one hand. She's clever. She's protecting her team from imposters, even though they went right ahead and let him in here without question.

"You were killed by Kiyomi Takada through use of her death note," L answers, and he can still remember that awful day in vivid detail. "She instructed you to summon me, but you didn't."

Naomi doesn't give any response.

"You once brought a dog into our headquarters in the second world," she begins.

"It was a Labrador-spaniel cross," L tells her, anticipating the question. "Female."

"Who were you really talking to that day?"

"Rae," L says. That isn't such a good question. Naomi couldn't have known for sure who L was talking to before she gained the ability to see Rae.

"No, Raye was my husband's name," she says.

"There were two people with that name in our team," L replies.

And that should be enough to remove any doubt. He knows things that only L or another member of L's team could know. And sure enough, Naomi pulls off her mask. She has cut her hair off at the level of her chin. Other than that, she looks exactly the same. Dark eyes, blunt fringe, smile as bright as the room.

L feels as if his stomach has dropped somewhere into one of his legs.

"You," Naomi says.

"You," L echoes.

And then he's running, taking two or three stairs in every stride, because he has wanted this so much and he never even let himself think about it.

He reaches the landing and he and Naomi hover for a moment, staring at each other.

"I am sorry for getting you killed," L whispers.

"It was always a risk," Naomi says, just as softly.

"And your husband is fine," L adds, figuring that Naomi would want to know that immediately. "Watari will make sure he is provided for now that I am gone."

"Speaking of my husband," Naomi says, and looks over her shoulder. "Connor. Come here."

L frowns, because she said those last three words in honorific Japanese. A very small boy toddles out of a room behind her. He looks like a miniature carbon copy of Naomi. He is clutching what appears to be a large, fluffy dinosaur toy. When he sees L, he huddles behind Naomi's leg and scowls up at him.

"This is my boss," Naomi says to the boy. "He is safe."

"I understand," the boy replies, in the same language.

L stares between the two of them.

"This is your son?"

Naomi shrugs.

"You must have figured out I was pregnant after I died. I can't imagine this is a surprise to you."

In his whole life, L has worked while taking care of a child exactly once. He can't imagine doing it every day, all the time.

_How do you ever get anything done?_

_Aren't you terrified?_

"Why have you only taught him one language?" L asks.

"He speaks all languages," Naomi replies. "But he knows that people who are familiar him will only speak to him in honorific Japanese. It's one of the ways he can tell a safe person from an unsafe person."

"Wow," L murmurs. "But how did you manage to-"

"Can we hug now?" Naomi interrupts.

"I admit I have been fighting the urge to hug you since I saw you," L replies, and then she is in his arms and he's holding onto her, alive and warm and perfect.

L never ever wants to be without his deputy ever again.

"I missed you so much," Naomi says. "I didn't think I'd get to see you for years."

"I didn't think I'd get to see you at all," L tells her. "From now on, you are not allowed to die without my written permission."

Naomi snorts into his shoulder.

"Uh huh. And how did you manage to die so quickly, anyway? What happened?"

L hesitates. Naomi knows of Rae's existence, but she doesn't know of their relationship. He is certain that she wouldn't approve if she found out. L decides that he will keep that a secret, at least for now.

"It was a random stabbing," he explains. "I was unlucky."

"I don't believe you," Naomi says. "How could-"

She is cut off by the sound of wet bone china smashing against the floor. Sounds like someone just dropped their mug of tea.

"Oh my fucking fucking fucking fuck," someone else says, from behind them.

* * *

Len Grover is back again. His wife got a restraining order against him months ago, but he still turns up to the Southwest police station with alarming regularity.

"I still haven't heard from my wife," he bleats.

Sergeant Stanton stares at him blankly.

"You are not allowed within a sixty mile radius of Bonita Grover," she explains, in her unpleasantly monotonous voice.

Len is sweating profusely, and deathly pale. He has some sort of anxiety disorder. He looks terribly worried, and Teru hates Stanton for not even caring. Just like he hates himself for the fact that he would have killed Len Grover in a heartbeat in the first world, for the temerity of not being _normal enough_.

Once you start seeing in black and white, all the other categories disappear. The mentally ill are bad. The lost and lonely are bad. Victims are bad, if they don't react in exactly the right way. People who look different are bad. People who pray to different gods are bad.

_Delete. Delete. Delete._

This is why Teru cannot ever become a lawyer again. He cannot trust himself with people's lives. He cannot trust himself with their freedom or their safety. And he cannot ever, _ever_ tolerate Light's return. No matter what. Even if he comes back lobotomised and in shackles.

_You were poison_.

"She _loved_ me," Len wails. "We were in love. And then…it all happened so fast. I just want to know that she is okay. Can't you do that for me? You don't need to tell me where she is or who she's with. You don't need to even tell me anything. Just…go and make sure she's okay."

"Sorry," Stanton replies, steadily. "We are too busy."

They're not busy at all.

"I'll look into it," Teru tells him, moving forward. "I'll find her for you. I promise."

Stanton gives him a look that could curdle bricks. She manages to do it without changing her expression at all.

"No you won't," she orders.

She can't stop him, though. She can't stop who he looks for, just as long as he appears to be following her orders. Stanton isn't the boss of him, as much as she'd like to think she is. Teru can do things in his spare time. He can run background checks undetected. He can take matters into his own hands.

No. No, he can't. The whole point of putting himself into the force was to make sure he would always be kept in line, that he'd never hurt anyone again.

How many people could be hurt just by Teru surreptitiously checking on one divorced woman?

Teru doesn't know how many.

"Sorry," he mumbles.

"You need to learn to keep your mouth shut," Stanton tells him, coldly.

Teru slinks out of the office, away from Len's disappointed face. When he gets into the hall, Deputy Sergeant Daniels shoulder-checks him and slams him against the wall. Then Daniels walks on, without even saying a word.

Teru _hates_ this place.

* * *

Naomi pushes L away a little, hands on his shoulders.

"Turn around," she says, quietly.

The air is still. Connor stares up at L as if he is regarding a large and dangerous animal. L swivels on his heel, because there are obviously more people in this building than the ones that he can see right now.

Because of course.

L completes the half circle turn, and there he is. Tie askew. Hair askew. Looking from L to the ill-fated teacup on the ground and then abruptly back to L.

"Oh my god," L says.

"Oh my _god_," Matsuda says, pointing at L.

_You're here, too._

L is suddenly hit by an unheeded franticness, as if somehow now that he's here he isn't _doing _this right. And he rushes forward and Matsuda catches him with one arm, twisting the other one around so as to continue pointing at him. And L doesn't know what to do with his hands or his face and then he's kissing Matsuda and Matsuda is kissing him.

"Aw," Wedy says, from somewhere in the distance.

"You are the weirdest girl I know," Aiber tells her.

* * *

Wedy and Aiber are long gone by the time Shadow arrives. Not that she understands who Wedy and Aiber are, of course. She just goes where she is told to go, carrying her tiny camera and her tinier two-way radio with her.

Nobody notices her.

"Zero," says the voice that only she can hear. The radio is hidden in her ear.

Zero means she can go wherever she wants. And she wants to go back to the park, to watch the dogs. Shadow likes dogs. She likes how slobbery and fun they are.

And she leaves the casino, and nobody says a word.

In the darkness, Shadow moves.

In the daylight, Shadow moves.

All around the city, Shadow moves.

Shadow moves, and _he_ sees everything that she sees.

* * *

L lies on his back on a bed he has never seen before, plain and rectangular, with navy sheets and a cheap plastic frame. Naomi Penber sits by his left side. She's been trying to tell him about their recent cases, and L has been trying to listen, but he keeps getting lost. Eventually she gives up and kindly tolerates him running his mouth stupidly.

L has never experienced emotional overload before. At least, not with happy emotions.

"Are you and Wedy still dating?" he asks Matsuda.

"Yes," Wedy answers, from the doorway.

"Yes!" Matsuda agrees, happily.

"Ichthyosaurus!" Connor announces to nobody in particular, slamming one plastic dinosaur toy into another. "Grr. Rrr."

L stares at Wedy in confusion.

"He has standing permission to kiss you," Wedy explains. "We discussed that a long time before you arrived."

"I knew you'd come back," Matsuda says brightly. He is stretched out on L's right, curled up against L's side like a baby koala. "Just like I totally knew you weren't evil even though I knew you had a notebook and a monster thing."

"Wait," L says, reeling. "How did you know?"

"I heard you talking to your Shinigami one night," Matsuda explains. "But then Naomi told me that it was an okay Shinigami and you didn't kill anyone so I was totally right. Yay."

"Apatosaurus totherescue! Vrrrrrr!"

"So you thought I might have been evil for what, three years?" L asks, incredulously.

"Nope," Matsuda replies. "I knew you weren't."

"Maybe you should be a little more sceptical," L says, frowning.

"Waaa, Allosaurus!"

"You never employed him to be sceptical," Naomi reminds him. "You employed him to be spontaneous, unpredictable, and occasionally useful."

And L had forgotten how well Naomi knew him. He had forgotten all of this and yet been desperate for it.

"I'm occasionally useful?" Matsuda asks, sounding giddy and excited, like he hadn't dared hope he'd be useful to them.

"No, sweetheart," Wedy tells him. "They just pay you a wage for the tax cuts."

"Oh," Matsuda says, sounding disappointed. "Wait, was that sarcasm?"

"Hey," L says, knocking the back of his hand against Matsuda's chest. "I want you to work for me."

Matsuda tries to punch the air in celebration and almost falls off the bed. Wedy stretches one leg out and casually shoves him back into place with her foot.

"We don't have any pressing cases at the moment," Naomi says. "You should get some sleep."

L can sleep here. People will look after him.

"It's Mr Archaeopteryx!"

"I should ," L agrees. "How does your son even know all of these words?"

"I've been asking myself the same question," Matsuda says.

"Children grow up at least three times faster in the third world," Wedy says. "But he's also at least part-genius."

_Perhaps he'll be a worthy successor_, L thinks, and then he thinks of his own successors and feels horribly sad. Connor meets his eye and then proceeds to hide under the nearest chair.

Rest. L needs rest.

"All of you need to leave," he says, abruptly

And then he drifts off, knees drawn up under his chin.

Everyone will still be here when he wakes up.

* * *

In a public bar, not far from London city, there is a mass shooting. Three people are killed. Eight more are injured. A young police officer named Anushka Singh takes a bullet to the shoulder and ends up in hospital.

Later, her deputy sergeant visits her and asks her about the culprit. She keeps saying the same thing, over and over again.

_There was no culprit._

* * *

"Crime rates are much the same as the second world," Naomi explains, fanning some large charts out onto the desk in front of her. "Those with god marks tend to be more careful, up to a point. But once they cross that line and kill someone, many of them become just as dangerous as they used to be."

L nods. There is a question he wants to ask, but he is simultaneously afraid of the answer.

"The Big Four can complicate issues, but Matsuda and I are profiling them. They're easier to predict once you understand their motives. Sometimes they help the criminals, sometimes they help the law."

"Have there been signs of anything strange?" L asks, putting off his important question for a little longer. This is important, too. "Monsters? Notebooks? Omnipotent gods?"

"Nothing," Naomi replies, setting her hands on the edge of the desk. "All claims of the supernatural in this world have been consistently debunked."

_Has the hell-god has stopped hosting hells in the third world, _L wonders. It would make sense, since she has truncated her capacity to see this world. But he doesn't really understand how Jas works, and that puts him at a disadvantage.

"Interesting," L says out loud, touching his lip. "That should make our job a lot easier."

"Well, you'd think so," his deputy says, with a bitter little laugh. "Our main problem seems to be the police force itself, at least in England."

L frowns.

"How so?"

Naomi passes him a small pile of papers.

"The chief of police has just publically refused to allow any officers to assist the detective known as L," she says.

"We can pretend to be someone else," L suggests.

He still doesn't ask.

"Of course we can," Naomi says, running one hand through her dark hair. "But the point is, they've disempowered the name of L. And more importantly, there is a significant taskforce that seems to be solely focused on finding Wedy."

L hesitates, processing this information.

"Let me guess. They are claiming this is because she is a known criminal, but you suspect otherwise?"

Wedy's association with L was not particularly secret in the second world, and it is unlikely to be a secret here.

"You suspect otherwise too," Naomi says, smiling a little and then sobering immediately. "I think the police are working their way up to being openly hostile to you."

It is possible, of course, that the police have simply made a business or political decision not to associate with him. But it is unlikely. It is more likely that someone with significant power in this country doesn't like him.

_Please tell me he's not behind this._

_Please._

"I have to know," L says, getting delicately to his feet. "Have there been any signs of Light Yagami in this world?"

Naomi looks surprised.

"Of course not," she says. "Don't worry about that. I'm pretty sure Light will never get out of hell."

L breathes easy again. Of course Light isn't here. Of course.

Anything else, he can handle.

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n

+ thank you so much for your support, and for sticking with me from SC into this new fic. I will try to make it as good as possible.

+ I'm gonna guess that the next chapter will be up in two to three weeks again. :)


	3. Shadows

notes/warnings

+ general bad writing

+ stealth firearms

* * *

**Shadows**

* * *

"I'm sorry, Miss Singh," Deputy-Sergeant Maryanne Marigold tells her. "I assure you the police detectives have investigated thoroughly. There is no reason to believe that there wasn't a gunman present in the bar at the time of the shooting."

Anushka shakes her head. She loves her job, and she _loves_ her team at the Northwest Police Beat. She would do anything for literally any of them. They are the smartest, gentlest, most competent people she has ever met.

Which isn't a surprise really, since all the less desirable police officers were assigned to Southwest.

But as much as she loves her job, she also trusts her judgement.

"Then they're wrong," she says, voice steady.

Maryanne touches Anushka's shoulder.

"It was a big night," she says, sympathetically. "The Religious party won for the first time in eighty years. Everyone was celebrating. Some of the other patrons were so drunk they were hallucinating."

"I wasn't," Anushka says. "There was _nobody_ with a gun. You have the results of my last physical and you know that my vision is excellent. The bullets came out of nowhere."

"Look, I know some people with god-marks say that their hells contained a supernatural element," Maryanne says, crossly. "And that's all well and good, but nothing like that happens in this world."

"I'm not saying it was supernatural. I'm saying there was nobody in that room with a gun."

Maryanne sighs, and turns away.

"The case is closed, Anushka," she says. "Accept it and move on."

_No_, Anushka thinks.

"Okay ma'am," she says out loud, with all due respect.

She'll investigate this on her own terms, if necessary. She is not giving up.

* * *

The first time they sit down to a meal together is bliss. Naomi talks about Roderick, and how she posed as a young critic online in order to trap him. She talks about how she determined his habits from weeks of studying his movements. And she sounds so clever and smart and safe that L has to battle down the urge to touch her, to reassure himself that she is _with him again_.

He doesn't have to battle down the urge to touch Matsuda, because everything Matsuda does is tangible and obvious. It's as if he is bigger than his own body, colouring everything around him. He spills sauce on L's caramelised pear and says 'whoops' and L wants to cry with how much he has missed this.

Wedy eats daintily, exchanging witticisms with Aiber. She is so precious to so many people, and L will look after her.

Connor hides his head under the table and blindly sculpts his mashed carrots into the shape of a dinosaur on his plate. And Connor is an intruder in all this – L has never worked with him before – but he is Raye and Naomi's son, and that makes him welcome.

"How did you manage to achieve all this with a child in tow?" L asks Naomi.

"How could I not achieve this?" Naomi asks. "I want him to be proud of me."

"Aren't you scared for his safety?"

"I'm scared for everyone's safety."

"But aren't you scared that he will be used against you?"

"He knows how to use his guns," Naomi says, shrugging. "He knows the protocols if there aren't safe people around. There isn't a foolproof way to parent a child, but this is my way."

Aiber folds his arms.

"It still doesn't seem right to expose him to so much so young," he says, sternly. "Children here grow up fast enough as it is. Teaching a toddler that the world is a dangerous place isn't fair."

"But the world_ is_ a dangerous place," Wedy says. "Every world is dangerous. My dad taught me how to handle a pistol before I was one."

"That's just stupid," Aiber says.

"My dad never let me have guns," Matsuda says, enthusiastically trying to add to the conversation and failing slightly.

When L was two years old, he could dismantle the most basic of his mother's bombs.

"I love tyrannannannannannosaurus rex," Connor tells his mother, cheerfully.

"He doesn't seem overly stressed," L says to the others. "We should stop criticising Naomi and enjoy the time that we get to spend together."

He pretends not to see the way Aiber rolls his eyes, and slams his plate hard against the table.

* * *

Jas loses herself in the second world, engrossed in Near and everything she does. Jas starts to rebuild her identity, and her thought processes. She starts to heal. She starts to reclaim her hold on the good version of herself, on who she wanted to always be.

To remain moderate, she must always strive for goodness.

And she loses herself in the honeymoon phase of having found a new human to watch. A new hope in her life. A person she can pretend is utterly flawless.

She doesn't pay much attention to the third world. For ten days, she had scrutinised it closely, waiting and watching. But there was nothing to see. Nobody used her notebook paper, and so she could not locate it. The paper must be used in order to leave a trail.

So Jas waits. And in the meantime, she focuses all her energy on the Prince.

Well, and Mihael, of course. He will always be precious to her, too.

* * *

_Things get serious for a little while. Another Kira starts causing trouble. L knows it isn't the same one as before, because L is brilliant and talented and everything you'll never ever be._

_L is pretty much the opposite of you, except that he's not married to Matt either._

_But anyway, the new Kira actually manages to hunt down Near's headquarters. Near has to move at the last moment, detonating his own office building with a massive smoke bomb and escaping into the confusion. Everyone talks about how great he is for fooling Kira. Matt sends you three texts on the matter._

'_Wow, Near is awesome.'_

'_No seriously, Near is so so awesome.'_

'_Remember when we used to talk about how much we hated Near? Haha, were we ever wrong!'_

_You kind of want to send back a string of expletives, but you don't, because you love Matt and he hardly ever swears these days and anyway Gemma might be playing with his phone and you would taint her pure little mind._

_You taint everything. You are more fungus than person. That's what Near said._

_And more than that, you don't say anything because you do remember when you both hated Near. When you were both friends and you were still pathetically convinced that you were going to save the world and win the boy and ultimately beat Near._

_(Well, you never really had firm plans for winning the boy, but you were going to try, at some point. When things were less busy. But you never tried and now it's too late.)_

_You remember the blue roses and the dusty orphanage beds. You remember him telling you in patented detail about how important Samus Aran was, and that she was cleverer, more beautiful, more talented, and more capable than Lara Croft. You remember not caring about that, either._

_Anyway, it doesn't matter now._

_Near builds a new headquarters, and doesn't tell you where it is. Halle tells you that they'll be moving the Jeevases again soon, and this time they won't be within driving distance of where you are._

_You kick a few things, including Dwayne. And then you go and lie helplessly on the ground, because there's nothing you can do._

_You are worthless._

* * *

"This really isn't that much fun, you know," Ryuk comments, munching on six apples at once. "You promised me this would be fun."

"You're having fun," his friend replies. "You're enjoying the anticipation. You want to know how I plan to destroy my darling son without drawing any more attention to myself."

Damn, how did she know? It's like she can read his mind. They are _such_ good friends.

"Well, the queen is watching," Ryuk says, helpfully. "She'll find you as soon as you use the notebook paper again. To be honest, I don't really see how you're going to get out of this."

"Watch and learn," his friend replies, grinning.

* * *

L and Wedy go to a tiny little café three blocks away from the new headquarters. Wedy is meeting one of her thief friends later, and it is an excellent excuse for them to catch up one-on-one. L orders a dessert that is literally a stack of different-shaped lumps of sugar. He enjoys every mouthful. Wedy orders expensive black coffee and proceeds to smoke near it. She tells L about Gladville, about the other high-profile criminals in the area, and about a new make of car that is significantly harder to lock-pick than any other vehicle she's ever encountered.

"I swear, it took me a whole three minutes," Wedy says, sounding genuinely impressed. "I hope they paid the inventor handsomely."

"I met your mother," L says. There is never going to be a good segue into this particular conversation.

For the briefest of moments, Wedy's mask slips. Her usually-neutral face shows the briefest flicker of emotion. The corner of her mouth twitches violently, just once. And then she is back to normal, as calm and collected as ever.

"A lot of people have met my mother," Wedy says. "I hate to break it to you, but that isn't special, honey."

"I met your father, too."

"Naomi told me about that. I'm not going to apologise for what he did."

"Ah," L says, awkwardly. "But your father raised you, am I correct? You didn't have much to do with your mother when you were growing up."

"My mother left me," Wedy says, matter-of-factly. "That was her decision. Father and I cut her out of our lives. That was our decision."

Wedy raises her mug to her lips, and sips fastidiously. L sighs. This is going nowhere.

"Do you even know what your mother is doing in the second world?" he asks, quietly. "Did you know she had another child?"

Wedy slips for a second time, freezes with the mug halfway between her mouth and the dirty café-standard table. Then she sets it down.

"I remember when my father told me my mother had replaced me," she admits, cautiously. "She'd just had her eighteen week scan. I don't even know how he found out the results. But he told me that she was having another daughter, just like me."

The last time he and Wedy were together, L had no sort of emotional understanding at all. He was barely capable of compassion. Now he can almost imagine her pain – of being a child and not being wanted. He can see how she still carries it around with her.

"I'm sorry," he says, respectfully. "That must have been awful for you."

"Are you kidding?" Wedy asks, taking another swig. "I was ecstatic. I'd spent my entire childhood wanting a sister. I assumed – stupidly – that we were going to meet up and play together. That we were going to steal shoes together and then trade them."

Well, that's not what L was expecting.

"So you've met her?"

"No," Wedy says.

A tall, skinny man with freckles and thick glasses is making his way over to their table. Wedy notices him at the same time, and doesn't seem worried. This must be Anthony.

L decides to try one more time.

"What happened?"

"Life happened," Wedy says, shortly. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go and be amongst my people."

* * *

"Who was that guy?" Anthony asks, kissing Wedy on the cheek.

"Ugh," Wedy says, waving her hand in the air dismissively. "My least favourite ex. Well, least favourite after that one girl who tried to murder me with an axe."

"Are you sure he isn't L?" Anthony asks.

Anthony thinks literally everyone is L. He's sort of a fan. For that reason, Wedy refuses to tell him any details about her work or her association with L, even though he's her closest friend. Wedy has to protect her boys. And her girl.

She still doesn't like the feeling of having a set job, a single employer, and a firm demand on her loyalty. Her life is becoming regimented – she's getting _old_ – and sometimes she just wants to run off into the night with Anthony and go back to her old life and never return.

But then that idiot Matsuda would be sad, and it's kind of her responsibility to stop him from being sad to the best of her ability. And she loves the others, too. Love makes people settle for less than they deserve.

"Yes," Wedy says, curtly. "Any recent exploits to discuss?"

"Yes!" Anthony says, excitedly. "I found another way into the Pentagon. The sewerage to the east bathrooms is just wide enough to accommodate a person. I've figured out that if I-"

"Stop," Wedy interrupts. "If you're still doing things the dirty way, you're more of an amateur than I thought."

"You're such a princess," Anthony jokes, admiringly.

"I'm not a princess. I'm just me."

"Fair enough. What have you done recently?"

"Just the United Nations Bank," Wedy tells him. "Oh, don't look so impressed. It was easy."

The world is easy. She can go wherever she wants. And sometimes she feels like L's team doesn't really appreciate that.

"Whatever," Anthony replies, grinning. "Say, do you want to steal a car? Just for old time's sake?"

"Sure," Wedy tells him.

She doesn't often think of disappearing into the night.

But sometimes.

Sometimes.

* * *

It happens again, in a little town adjacent to London. Her brother just happened to be next door. He calls her immediately after.

"I swear, Anushka," he babbles, "there was nobody there. Nobody had a gun. Nobody that was standing in the right place, anyway."

"I know," Anushka replies.

She listens to him talk all night, trying to calm his shattered nerves. And when morning comes, she makes a different call. A call to a number she memorised specifically before it was removed from every contact list in the police force.

"Hello?" she says, into the automated system, and she hopes and prays that he's actually listening. "I need L's help. Something strange is going on."

* * *

"We have a new case," Naomi informs him. She has somewhat taken up Watari's role of monitoring their one semi-public phone line. She hasn't taken up Watari's role of baking, which is disappointing. L is getting a little tired of living off sugar cubes and the jars of maple syrup in the pantry.

Naomi finishes checking the answering machine and moves on to the four most reputable reporting websites that have been set up for 'L' by third parties. They're mostly just filled with ridiculous spam and pop-up ads.

'_L plz help I have accidentally fallen down my stairs'_

'_L are you real will you take me on as an apprentice I got straight As in school'_

And a really odd message that posts once a day, every day:

'_Whatever you do, watch out for cats.'_

They should really have two or three phone lines, advertised to various sectors of the public, and they shouldn't bother with websites. But L hasn't mentioned those facts to Naomi yet. He doesn't want to seem _too_ critical when he's so pleased just to be with her again.

"And that's the only significant case," Naomi says, finally. "Shall we investigate it further, boss?"

L grins.

"You never called me 'boss' before."

"I wanted to try it."

"I see."

L considers her question for a moment, trying to envisage how this case might progress. In the second world, he would've had Watari contact this girl and learn more information.

"Who do we usually send out to talk to victims and investigate crimes?" he asks, thoughtfully. Wedy would be the obvious choice, but she's the subject of a significant police investigation.

"If it's dangerous? Me. If it's not dangerous, Matsuda. He's good at disarming people."

_Matsuda?_

Is he really reliable enough? L had forgotten just how ditzy the man could be. In any case, it doesn't matter right now. The caller is a member of the Northwest police. She could get into significant trouble if anyone finds out that she contacted L.

"Call her back," he says. "Find out more information about this absent gunman. We'll take it from there."

"Got it," Naomi replies.

* * *

He sleeps a lot. There are alarms on the screens that will tell him if L ever appears. He programmed facial recognition software into the surveillance feed software. He sleeps because he can't lose himself in the screens any more, the hundreds of moving, changing pictures aren't enough to drown out the screaming inside his head.

He doesn't know what he wants.

He doesn't know what he's going to do if he ever gets what he wants.

He doesn't know what to do when Shadow comes home, because she's warm and alive and he doesn't want to feel anything. He wants to break her in half and he's terrified that he might hurt her.

He doesn't know what to say to the woman who brings him food in exchange for the occasional favour. She'd be a perfect hostage, but he doesn't even know what he'd ask for if he had a hostage. He doesn't know if she's worth anything to anyone. He doesn't want to starve to death. He wants to die. He doesn't want to die. He wants the noise in his head to stop.

He wants to go back to the beginning and he just. He can't.

The world is over. Everything is permanent.

* * *

"Life sure is weird, isn't it?" Edison says, cheerfully. "I mean, back in the first world we thought death was like, a permanent thing. And now people have been in hell and other worlds and all sorts of things. Sometimes it just blows my mind."

Teru doesn't answer. He doesn't tell anyone about the mark under his fringe. He's pretty sure nobody knows. He refuses to hide his identity, because people deserve to know, but he doesn't have the courage to actually tell them.

He's scared.

He and Edison are in the middle of an eleven-hour stakeout, sitting in a freezing car outside a suspect's home. Teru is always given the worst jobs. He is always assigned the boring, uncomfortable, reward-less tasks, even though the other constables are rotated through the good and bad in equal measures.

He really _hates_ Stanton and Daniels.

"What do you think of Mills' latest orders?" Teru asks, carefully. "It's a pretty big change, right? We usually work _with_ L."

Edison frowns.

"It's hard for me to understand," he admits. "I mean, I always thought L was a pretty decent sort of enigma. My little sisters look up to him, you know?"

So he has some doubt. Teru feels almost palpably relieved. He needs somebody to talk to about this, someone who is decent, who _understands._

"I think something's going on," Teru says in a rush. "I think someone high up has a grudge against L."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Edison says, actually clapping his hands over his ears. "Don't say things like _that_, Mikami. Who are we to question the wisdom of the chief? I'm sure everything will work out just fine in the end."

Teru might not even be here to see the end. Today, Daniels changed the lock on his locker without notice, and then docked Teru's pay for being late to start work. If that happens twice more, that'll be grounds for suspending him. If Daniels is trying to force him out of a job, then he might be gone within a month.

But while he's here, he's going to support L. No matter what it takes. And if his is the sticky end of a man who quibbled with a politically-corrupt chief, then so be it.

_I will do better this time. I will do right._

"Sorry," Teru says, out loud.

He doesn't mean it.

* * *

The public bar seems fairly standard with copious numbers of old brown stools and permanently sticky tables and a few booths crammed into a corner. There is a good quality security camera overhead and solid locks on both the front and back doors. But the level of security is almost irrelevant to a bar that is open seven nights a week to anyone who is sober enough to crawl inside.

Naomi always struggles to get started in cases that don't have any obvious leads. She is really glad to have L back. It's a relief to be able to fall back into her old role, into the job she always wanted, the job she loves almost as much as she loves Raye.

L doesn't do a lot of close examination at first. Instead he stands in the middle of the currently-empty bar, examining a hand-drawn chart of the approximate positions of the victims at the time of the shooting. Then he checks a fistful of photographs of the injuries received.

"I've requested the security footage from the owner," Naomi tells L, hoping to be at least a little useful.

"We won't see anything," L murmurs.

Naomi tilts her head.

"You've figured this out already?" she asks, not exactly surprised. L is kind of magic, in a way.

"I've figured out where the gunman was standing," L replies. "Or at least, where he rigged up his apparatus. This is a one-level building, and yet for this pattern of injuries the shots must have come from the ceiling."

"He was in the attic?" Naomi asks.

"There is a sixty-two percent chance," L tells her. "We should definitely go up there and search for evidence."

* * *

Crawling around in tiny spaces should be Wedy's job, but L doesn't feel comfortable asking her to help. She assures him that she's fine, that she's one step ahead of the police and all her other enemies and everyone in the world who wishes her ill.

According to Naomi's rough calculations, there are at least two thousand, five hundred and thirty people in the world who wish Wedy ill.

That is an awful lot of people.

And now L is beginning to see the chinks in Wedy's designer armour. She still has obvious weaknesses where her family is concerned. What if her sister shows up? Would she leave L? Would she take Aiber and Matsuda with her?

Being part of a team was much easier when L could pretend not to care about his colleagues. Now he has no choice. He cannot ever be rid of the Achilles heel that is everyone he loves.

_What if Light finds me like this?_

Well, maybe he'd lose. Maybe he'd assume L is still the same and miscalculate. Or maybe L will be with Rae by then.

L examines the attic floor carefully. A correctly-placed hole would allow someone to shoot straight into the bar below. A semiautomatic weapon, coupled with such a hole, would allow precisely the placement of bullets that occurred the other night.

"Are you done?" Naomi calls. "Can you see anything, or not?"

Naomi is right to be annoyed. The hole would have to be within a thirty-centimetre radius of the centre of the attic. With the light on downstairs, it shouldn't theoretically be difficult to spot.

But there is no light leaking into the attic. And thank goodness for that, haha.

The thing is: L trusts Naomi's words. He wants to believe in her conviction that Light will never come back. But somewhere at the back of his mind, he keeps on planning for the day when he and Light begin round two. Anything else seems too easy. L is still frightened of Light, and that's why he is sure that one day he'll have to try again, and either win and be okay or lose and…

…and the world will fall.

And that's the most comforting thing about this third world. Light cannot be the one with part of the hell-god's notebook. If he was, everything would already be ruined. The world would be burning. L wouldn't be here, on his elbows and knees in an attic, because a particularly brave police officer won't stand for crime no matter what her chief orders.

"Did you figure it out?" Naomi asks.

The attic floor is normal. The only thing that's even up here is the top part of the security camera.

Bingo.

"Yes," L replies.

* * *

Today Teru and Kylie are standing watch outside the grounds of an actual mansion. The place literally has its own post code and Teru fails to see how standing around outside, several kilometres from the house, is going to protect the children in the house from any sort of kidnapper.

"Don't worry about it so much," Kylie tells him, sombrely. "Leave worrying for the detectives. We're just constables. Standing around uselessly is _what we do_."

Teru sighs, and adjusts his glasses.

"Did you ever feel like maybe you were cut out for better than this?" he asks. "Because I used to."

Now he knows this is what he deserves, all he can do, but it's as frustrating as hell. The old Teru waged a literal war on bullies and criminals and nearly goddamned won. The old Teru was a renowned prosecutor. The old Teru was once the right-hand man of the most powerful being on the planet.

The slightly-less-old Teru was a literal monster possessed by a figurative monster who turned children to stone.

And that's the reason why, but that doesn't help when Teru has hundreds of ideas for solving this case and _no-one is doing anything_.

"Nah," Kylie replies. "I'm happy with my life."

* * *

Sometimes, when nobody is looking, Matsuda attempts to crouch instead of sitting. It doesn't work and it mostly makes him look like an idiot. But sometimes Matsuda likes to pretend to be L, or some other powerful successful person. He knows he can't succeed, but he has a pretty good imagination at times.

He is currently perched on the sofa, watching a thrilling marathon of surveillance feed. Which is actually a pretty good task, because the other option is to be stuck in the neighbouring room reading pages of evidence. And watching stuff is a lot easier than reading stuff and sometimes reading makes Matsuda's head hurt. So it's good, even though he's in here all alone and he misses L. Sometimes it's okay to miss L, because then Matsuda can just get up and wander down the hall and remind himself that L is back now and that they're together.

He slept in L's bed for three nights in a row. Matsuda would probably date L if Wedy didn't exist. And if he didn't have the sneaking suspicion that maybe L was waiting for someone else.

* * *

L stares at the dismantled surveillance camera on his desk and tries not to look overtly dismayed. This is just about one of the nastiest things he has ever seen.

"There's a gun built into the camera?" Aiber says, helpfully. "Ouch."

"That's not the worst of it," L says, slowly. "This has happened in at least two other bars."

"And it also may have happened in a popular clothing store," Naomi says. "I'm still investigating the similarities."

"Gun!" Connor says, picking up on exactly one word out of the conversation.

"Not now," Naomi tells him. He calmly goes back to smashing plastic dinosaurs against the floor, and Naomi immediately returns to her work.

"All three bars were celebrating various recent elections," L muses. "But there have been plenty of other local elections in the area that haven't been attacked. And what would a store have to do with any of this?"

"It's a designer store," Naomi says. "They won't let us in without a warrant, and we won't get a warrant without the assistance of the police."

"Anushka would probably go if I asked her," L says, thoughtfully.

"Or we could just send Wedy?" Aiber suggests.

Wedy is currently out stealing pastries, because L was hungry and she was bored. L needs to find a better way to obtain sweet foods.

And he doesn't want to actively involve Wedy in this case. But the thing is, there is no reason to assume that the camera-guns are firing all of their bullets in every shooting session. Nor is it reasonable to assume that nobody is going back to fill them up. And no saying how many more gun-cameras have been sold and installed in other places.

There will be more fatalities, if L doesn't act soon.

"Contact Wedy," he says, decisively. "Tell her to go to the store and retrieve their security system without damaging it. Tell her to bring it back here, and tell her that this may be an ongoing task."

"Right," Aiber says, cheerfully.

"Naomi," L says. "Please investigate whatever company makes and installs these security cameras. Contact the other bars to see which companies they used, and investigate those as well."

"Understood," Naomi replies.

L hesitates for a moment, eyeing the blinking red light mounted on the wall.

"I already checked our systems," Naomi says. "They're safe. No bullets. No firing devices."

Damn. She is actually still a step ahead of him. L needs to focus.

"Can you ask Matsuda to check the surveillance feed?" he asks.

"Already done, too," Naomi tells him. "He said that at the time of the shooting, the camera didn't record anything at all. But it started recording again a few seconds later."

Huh. L had assumed that the devices were being set off at a pre-programmed time, but perhaps they are being controlled remotely.

"I didn't tell you to ask him to do that," he tells Naomi.

Naomi hesitates.

"I thought it was the right thing to do?" she says, sounding confused.

Yes. It probably was. So why does L feel like he's struggling to keep up with his own team? Why does he feel like he hasn't quite taken over from Naomi?

"Triceratops boom," Connor tells them, soberly.

"Can you consult with me a little more, before acting on my behalf?" L asks Naomi.

"Oh, sure," she says. "I didn't mean to make you feel…I didn't…"

"I know," L says, ashamed. This shouldn't be about his fragile ego. "I'm sorry to have to ask."

Matsuda wanders in, carrying a giant cup of soda and drinking loudly.

"I'm not out of practice," Naomi says quietly. "That's all. You'll be up to speed in no time."

L smiles at her, uncertain, and she grins back, and god he's so stupid for even worrying about things like this. He has his _team_. What more could he possibly ask for? He'll get better – he'll get back to his old form – because how could he fail to get better surrounded by these amazing people.

"So, can I name this case?" Matsuda asks, not-quite-completely oblivious to L's discomfort.

"Please do," L says.

Matsuda thinks deeply for a moment.

"Mr Shooty," he says.

"That sounds like something Connor made up while half asleep," Naomi says derisively.

"Mr Shooty it is," L declares.

* * *

They've changed the name of Stevenson Street. They're calling it Whiffle Street, in honour of the President of the United States of America.

It doesn't even _make sense_. The president is irrelevant here. It's just stupid fucking change. Change for no reason!

Gregory Plaice fists one hand, inside his pocket. He hates the world.

"Come on, mate," Lara hollers from the van. "We've got an appointment at ten. We're gonna be late."

"They've changed the name of the street," Gregory yells back.

_Please understand_.

Everything changes, and nobody cares. Everybody just wants to celebrate the _new_ thing, the fancy _new_ thing. Old things are just as fucking good and nobody understands.

"It's a street," Lara says, icily. "I'll update the GPS when we get back to the office, okay?"

Gregory has been working for Hawthorne and Hawthorn for exactly three weeks. He's still learning the ropes. He's still getting to know his colleagues. He's unfamiliar with the job, and the newness of everything makes his head ache.

"Okay," he says, and gets back in the van.

* * *

Shadow goes to area thirty-seven. This is one of her favourite locations, with rolling green spaces and ponds filled with ornamental fish. She sees two people standing at the gate, and hesitates. She isn't supposed to draw attention to herself, but this is one of the few places where the fence is low enough to jump. She waits for further instructions.

"Mikami!" says the voice in her ear, which isn't a command, so she continues to wait.

Most of the time, Shadow feels like she's too good for this job. But she wants to please, too, which is at odds with her general royalty-like nature. Although she knows she ought to live out her days on piles of silk pillows eating expensive cheese, she also wants _him_ to be pleased.

She's highly bred, is Shadow. Why, her brothers and sisters sold for tens of thousands of dollars.

But she didn't.

Bad attitude.

Too small.

Funny hind leg.

Weird meow.

Those are the things that people said when they took her from her glass-fronted cage and put her out on the streets. She didn't understand. She still doesn't understand. But then she found him, her brown-haired master, so it doesn't really matter.

"Retreat," he says, into her ear. That means she should go back the way she came. But then one of the people at the gate starts moving towards her.

"Normal."

The command has changed. On cue, Shadow washes her face with one paw, and then rolls over to show her belly.

"Aw," says the human, rubbing her obligingly.

"Mrow," Shadow says.

She's really great. She knows.

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n

+ thank you for reading, I really appreciate it.

+ okay, I've had several comments recently pointing out that this fic is substandard. first of all, I want to apologise to those of you who have been disappointed. I did consider stopping this fic altogether (as rewriting 400k+ words is just beyond my ability right now), but I've decided to continue with it for personal reasons. I'm going to re-instate 'bad writing' as a constant warning for this fic out of respect for these comments, so please don't feel like I'm disregarding them completely. if you really dislike this fic and are bothered by the fact that it is continuing, I would really appreciate if you subscribe to the age old internet practice of 'don't like don't read'. **I still welcome all constructive criticism** as I can apply it to my future writings, but I probably won't be discontinuing this fic unless I get a lot of really good reasons.

+ next update: probably in one week.


	4. Velocity

notes/warnings

+ sorry this chapter is late.

* * *

**Velocity**

* * *

He physically recoils from the screen. What the fuck is Mikami doing in the third world? Mikami was an evil fucking murderer who killed literally thousands of people and…ow.

His cognitive dissonance is reaching a point where it is causing him physical pain.

He doesn't know how to be sorry.

He doesn't know how to be sorry.

He takes a knife from the floor and sets it on the mattress beside him. If he cut his own heart out, maybe this would stop. If he stabbed himself in the eye, maybe he would be able to forget who he was. Or who he is. He can't survive as both people.

He can't _do_ this and nobody should be making him.

"Thirty-three," he tells Shadow, voice barely a whisper. The fence is lower in that area. He's memorised the layout of the whole town because he has _nothing else to do_.

He drags the greasy sheet over his head, fingers knotted in the material, and wonders how long it would take him to starve to death.

It doesn't matter.

There is no escape.

* * *

"Each bar used a different installation company," Naomi says. "And the security cameras are made by two different manufacturers. Phillips and Grovolt. They are both legitimate, long-standing manufacturers."

L tilts his head. This isn't really a lead at all.

_What is the connection, then?_ he wonders. _How are you doing this, Mr Shooty?_

"He must be getting to them after installation," L says. "We need to investigate any insulators, electricians, or other technicians that the bars have hired over the past few months. We need to find the common link."

"The common link is that you're all stupid," Wedy announces. "Seriously, at least pretend like you're thinking. In the third world, security installation companies contract their workers from a very small pool of skilled labourers. The same worker could easily have installed for three different companies at different times."

"Do I want to know how you know this?" Naomi asks.

"I'm a professional," Wedy answers, icily.

"You are _awesome_," Matsuda enthuses.

"Look into the workers," L tells Naomi, even though he knows she'd have done it anyway.

He isn't having much more success himself. Wedy found exactly the same bullets and trigger device in the clothing store. It doesn't make any sense. The store has no political connection, but the timing of the shootings at the bars suggests a strongly political motivation.

So is he looking at an original and a bad copycat? Or a single perpetrator with a more sophisticated motive?

"Ooh," Matsuda says, leaning over his shoulder. "I didn't know that Bureau got elected. I thought that horrible Crowhorn guy was going to stay mayor of Doolan forever."

"That's a fairly unreasonable assumption," L tells him, with embarrassing amounts of affection.

"Hmm," Matsuda says. "Ah. So they're only attacking regions where a new Mayor has been elected, right? The ones that just elected the old Mayor back in are safe."

"Right," L says.

"And the connection with the clothing store is…um…"

"If you have any breakthroughs, please let me know," L tells him.

Aiber buzzes through the intercom.

"Mr Shooty just struck again," he tells them, without a trace of humour. "The parking lot on Whiffle Street. Four people are dead."

* * *

Six hours drags by. It starts to rain. Kylie talks about the cat they saw and how much she loves cats and also goats and chickens and did she mention that she lives on acreage so she could totally get like a dozen cats.

Teru has missed his late-afternoon jog. He probably won't have time to eat dinner, even though he always has home-cooked eggplant on a Wednesday night. He hates things interrupting his schedule. He hates that he's so useless that Stanton has to come up with stupid exercises like _this_ just to keep him occupied and out of the way.

He hates the thought that maybe there are children who are getting kidnapped _right now_. He hates that he has to wait for someone else to tell him what to do.

He radios the base again, even though it's a useless venture.

"With all due respect, ma'am," he says, gravely, "we have good evidence to believe that the kidnapper will strike here tonight, and soon. I would recommend that we go closer to the house."

"The owner doesn't consent to a police presence on his property," Stanton monotones.

"But his children are _at risk_," Teru says, losing his all-too-slippery cool. "Don't you understand? Even _you_ should be able to understand. The last two kidnapping victims turned up dead. Lives are in danger. Children!"

"No."

Teru wants to throw the radio. He feels angry and trapped all the time. The only difference is whether it's Daniels kicking him in the shin and threatening his career or Stanton crushing his fucking humanity with her stupid useless devotion to the goddamned _rules_.

"_Listen to me_," he begins.

"No," Stanton tells him. "We do what we can do, and what we can do is governed by federal protocols."

_Fuck the protocols_, Teru thinks, viciously. _Fuck you._

He hangs up, fingers shaking. He wants his old superpowers back. He wants to be able to protect people and that is all he has ever wanted. He feels tears burn in the corners of his eyes, and fists his hands against his face.

Kylie touches him gently, one hand on his arm.

"I don't actually like Stanton all that much," she admits.

Teru remembers what Berkshire said the other day.

"I'm sure she's all right," he chokes. "Deep down. I'm sure."

How is he supposed to listen to good people if there aren't any good people to listen to?

* * *

_Out with the old, in with the new._

That was what his mother always used to say. And that was fine, when he _was_ the new. But now he's just…old.

Gregory sits at his computer, surveying his handiwork through the closed-circuit television. The pancake parlour is barely a few blocks from his apartment. If he opened the door, he could probably hear the screaming from here.

It used to be his favourite place to eat. What a pity it had to undergo a change in management.

Gregory used to be great. He used to be a consulting computer technician, and he charged fees like a CEO. He once repaired the diamond-studded laptop of famous supermodel Grianna Jones. And when he came to the third world and found people like himself, he adapted.

But he's getting older. More rigid. He can't adapt any more, and so he's going to drag the world down to his pace.

Gregory surveys the local news channels. Everyone is talking about the invisible gunman. Mr Shooty, they're calling him. L is on the case.

Good. He wants to be big. He wants to be noticed. He wants to go out with a big goddamned bang. He wants to die and he doesn't much care if he ends up in hell, as long as the degeneration in his brain stops.

Dying resets everything.

And fame overshadows everything else.

But with L on the case, the chances of being caught before his big finale are skyrocketing. Gregory needs to pick up the pace, and soon.

That's fine. He's planned for this, too.

* * *

"Hawthorne and Hawthorn," Naomi says. "That's the common factor. Or at least, it could be. They're a popular subcontractor, and they're hired to install roughly eighty percent of security systems in the area."

L isn't really listening. He's still busy staring at the updated list of shootings. There have been two more, a dessert restaurant and a local lobby group headquarters.

The thing is: there _is_ a connection. But the connection is unnervingly broad.

Change. The bars were celebrating new mayors. And each affected business has recently undergone either a change in ownership or a change in direction. That's it. That's all. And that is terrifying, especially if the perpetrator has had access to eighty percent of London homes and establishments. Everything changes, all the time. Mr Shooty will end up just killing everyone at this rate.

"So what will you do?" Wedy asks, keeping up with him as always. "Where do you think he'll strike next?"

"The shootings are become more frequent," L says. "We can't risk guessing the next target."

Wedy stares at him.

"What?" she says, sounding genuinely confused. "That's what you always do."

Yes. Last time they worked together, L would have pitted his wits against Mr Shooty. He would have estimated the pattern, with around seventy percent accuracy, and bet everybody's lives on his own cleverness.

"That's not how we always do things," Naomi tells her. "The way I see it, this criminal could pretty much wipe out the population of London overnight. We need to warn people."

"If he is controlling the devices remotely, that may still put people at risk, though," L muses.

"Do you want me to rob _all _of the houses?" Wedy asks snidely, hands on her hips. She looks impossibly like her mother. "Because that is going to take a while."

L considers this as if it is a genuine offer.

"Wedy, how many fellow thieves owe you a favour?" he asks, quietly. "And how many more can we buy with our current funds?"

"Are you fucking _serious_?" Wedy complains. "Probably about eight or so. My people are expensive."

L nods.

"Naomi and I will figure out which buildings to prioritise," he says. "Please make arrangements with your fellow thieves."

"Associating with thieves is going to make you look even worse in the eyes of the police," Naomi points out.

"I don't care," L tells her.

He can't care, not when so many lives are at risk.

* * *

And in the dead of the night, while Teru sulks and Kylie dozes, the kidnapper comes to the mansion. He picks the front door, rolls under the sensors of the alarm, silently opens the door to the twins' bedroom, and shoves a dirty rag over both of their faces in one fluid movement.

There is no struggle.

In a warm, safe police station several miles away, Sergeant Stanton does nothing.

* * *

"So," Anthony says, brightly, dropping another pilfered camera into their lead-lined bag, "tell me. Is L involved in this venture? I bet he is! When am I going to get to meet him?"

"You want to meet him?" Diane asks, sceptically. She's one of Wedy's better protégés, and she is colloquially known as The Invisible Man. She's a super-thief. "He'd put you away for sure."

"No way," Anthony replies. "I want to work for him, and I'm talented."

"You can meet him once you've passed my tests," Wedy drawls. Wedy is a supreme thief, and she is so sick of all of their bullshit.

This is why she had to be with Matsuda, isn't it? He's inane and dense and deer-looking, but he is absolutely devoid of bullshit. He's as honest and as genuine as Light was evil. Sometimes the inevitability of their whole relationship exhausts her.

"You haven't even told me what the tests are," Anthony complains.

Wedy has tests for anyone who wants to get near L. L is one of her people, and that makes him valuable. Wedy assumes that all of her important people are objectively valuable. She is confident in the validity of everything she feels.

"That's the point."

They split up again, and ransack several more houses. Wedy carefully blocks the barrel of the gun with a specially-made polymer before tampering with it. She stays out of range of the camera the whole time. Even if Mr Shooty is controlling the units remotely, even if he knew what was going on and he wanted to stop the thieves, he'd have no idea when to set the guns off.

Wedy has to admire this guy's tenacity. Whoever he is, he is dangerous. L needs to figure him out real soon.

* * *

It's impossible.

_Impossible_.

All around London, the cameras are going down. The size of Gregory's feed is decreasing exponentially. _Someone is fucking removing all of the fucking security cameras._

He slams his hands against his desk, hard enough to drive splinters into his skin. He doesn't care. He grabs the shotgun from under his chair and climbs out the window, onto his own roof.

He won't let it end like this.

Gregory wants everyone to know who he is. He wants everyone to know what they _did_. He needs them to know the evils of change.

_Out with the old._

_In with the new._

_Starting with you_.

* * *

"The bullets are confusing me," Naomi says, flicking through the samples of ammunition.

"Bullets confuse me, too," Matsuda says, frowning.

Naomi resists the urge to pat him on the head.

"I mean, the labelling," she says. "These are high-quality bullets. And they're all engraved with the name of a maker."

She slides a magnifying glass over one of them to show him.

"Victorian Institute of Velocity," Matsuda reads. "Why is that confusing? That's a proper manufacturer, right. Even _I _know that."

L lifts his head, looking both sleepy and intensely focused. He's deep into this case, and Naomi loves him so much. She wants to do this forever.

"But Velocity is a manufacturer of standard bullets only," he says. "They do not make high quality bullets."

"Exactly," Naomi says, pointing at him. "So someone has gone to the trouble of engraving all these bullets _incorrectly_. Why?"

"It's like the opposite of a knock-off brand," Matsuda says. "Or is it part of the change thing? Is Velocity an old brand, or a new brand?"

"It's fairly old," Naomi tells him. "Not the oldest."

She's in her element now. 'Guns' is her favourite topic, and knowledge of firearms is her true power.

"What is Mr Shooty thinking?" L says, curiously. "Does he identify as someone of superior quality who has been incorrectly labelled? Or did he come by the bullets unknowingly? If so, that might give us a clue as to where he bought the ammunition. Which is, in fact, fairly useless."

"These bullets look like Caddingtons to me," Naomi says. "Probably Caddington thirty-eights or thirty-nines."

"Is Caddington an older company than Velocity?" L wonders.

"Newer, by about five years," Naomi says. "They were never really in competition."

"How do you keep all that information in your head?" Matsuda asks her, sounding awed.

"If he did it on purpose," L says, pressing his upper lip, "then he wanted someone to see. Why? What were we supposed to notice?"

"Maybe…his _name _is Victoria?" Matsuda suggests, trying valiantly to keep up.

"I'm not sure that makes sense," Naomi tells him, gently.

But L is staring at Matsuda reverently.

"It makes perfect sense," he says, grinning. "That's exactly what he did."

* * *

Teru is roused by the faint sounds of distant screaming and far-off house alarms. He is always woken by even the quietest of noises. He hasn't been able to sleep properly since he got out of hell. He keeps seeing the faces of the men and women he killed – murderers and thieves and rapists and _bullies_ – and trying desperately to understand.

"We have to go," he says, shaking Kylie awake. They shouldn't be sleeping on the damn job at all. "Quickly!"

"Wait," Kylie says, fishing her radio out of her belt. "We need permission."

"_No_," Teru says. "We can't. She'll refuse."

Kylie considers this for a moment, and then nods. Teru hates her for taking _so long_. The children are being attacked _now_ and they are still so very far away. He feels so helpless in this world. He feels like he used to feel at school, powerless and alone and angry.

"Okay," Kylie says, ruffling her short blonde hair and grinning at him. "Let's break the law."

* * *

Anushka would really like to sleep, but someone in the next street over keeps screaming at the top of their lungs.

"FUCK YOU!"

"I WILL KILL ALL OF YOU."

"IT'LL HAPPEN AGAIN. NEXT TIME IT WON'T BE JUST THE DAMN SECURITY CAMERAS. NEXT TIME IT WILL BE YOUR WHOLE GODDAMNED HOUSE."

She does what any sensible police officer would do. She gets up, puts on her uniform, and picks up her phone.

"Is this L?" she asks. "I'm pretty sure the criminal known as Mr Shooty is in my neighbourhood. Tell me how to beat him."

And, miracle of miracles, this time she doesn't get the answering machine. This time the mechanical voice on the other end definitely belongs to a human being.

"I think I've figured out a way to slow him down," the voice tells her. "I think I've figured out what he wants."

* * *

Gavin looks briefly at Garth. Garth shrugs and clutches his teddy bear a little more tightly. There is a weird-smelling rag near Gavin's right arm. More importantly, all the alarms in the house are going off, and there is a man he's never seen before dancing violently around the room. Their father sometimes hires entertainers for them, but never at this hour of the morning. Besides, the man is wearing a mask. He looks like a robber.

"What's going on?" Garth asks.

"I dunno," Gavin tells him.

The man gyrates quickly out of the room, swearing and cursing and using words that Gavin is definitely going to have to try out sometime when father isn't home. And whoever he is, he's weird. Even weirder is the stripy grey cat currently clamped around his leg, with teeth and claws sunk deeply into his flesh.

"I wonder if things like this ever happen to poor people," Garth comments, shaking his head slowly.

* * *

[Hangman] – _dude what the fuck are you doing?_

[Hangman] – _there were goddamned bullets in my damn security cameras._

[Hangman] – _I thought we were friends._

/JustGregory timed out.

* * *

There's a girl. She isn't approaching him. She's standing on the roof of a nearby house, fists clenched, like maybe she understands.

Gregory shakes his head, hard. Nobody understands. Everybody celebrates anything new, from a new mayor to a new goddamned shoe manufacturer. Nobody cares about the old.

And here he is, officially old. His beautiful plan is unravelling before his very eyes, and there is nothing that he can do. Well, nothing except shooting that nice girl, who he now sees is dressed suspiciously like a police officer, complete with suspicious-looking gun in hand.

"That was brilliant," she says, admiringly, and maybe he'll let her keep talking for a bit longer. "It must have taken you months to set up. Bullets in the security cameras – who'd have ever thought of it? Only you."

Gregory smiles weakly.

"I wanted to be remembered," he says, resisting the urge to wipe at his eye. "I wanted people to say 'good old Gregory'."

He isn't telling her anything she doesn't already know. They're practically neighbours. They used to run into each other at the little fish-and-chip shop down the road. Her name is Anushka, and she's still new. Still bright and shiny in this world.

"You're not good old Gregory, though," she says, sweetly. The hand on her gun hasn't relaxed even slightly. She means to shoot him. Gregory is suddenly uncertain whether he has the energy to shoot her first. "You are Viv, aren't you?"

He hears his old name as if it is a physical presence, a shock to his entire system. She knows him. She _knows _him.

"Yes," Gregory rasps. "That was me."

"You were somebody important," Anushka says, sympathetically. "I know the feeling. I used to be important too. Back in the first world, I was a lawyer. Now I'm just a constable."

Oh. That's why she's here. Kindred spirits. Gregory – no, _Viv_ – loosens his grip on the shotgun.

"Tell me," he says, quietly. He's all out of anger, and this _wasn't what he wanted._ "Tell me more about it."

* * *

Anushka talks for a while. She was never a lawyer, of course, she just borrowed the personal history of some guy in Southwest who she barely knows. Anushka has read everyone's files. She doesn't mind bending the rules. She embellishes her story in places – because she doesn't actually know how her colleague fell from grace - until it's the exactly the sort of tragic tale that Viv wants to hear.

Everyone knows that Nocks replaced Viv. The fact that the invisible gunman is the jilted hacker makes so much sense now. L is a goddamned genius, and Anushka owes him a favour.

"And by the time my legs worked again, I had been disbarred," she finishes, dropping the gun out of her palm and catching the end of it between her thumb and forefinger. "That's why I came out here tonight. I wanted to tell you that you are not alone."

And Viv is sweating and fidgeting and staring into the distance. She's giving him what he wants. This is _amazing_. Anushka wishes she could work with L all the time.

"I'm trying to understand," she says, a little more loudly. "Why did you kill all those people?"

Viv shakes his head.

"I did it to try and redirect a breaking world," he tells her. "I thought that if they could see change the way I see change – terrifying and monstrous – then they would understand. I knew if I killed enough people I could change minds. That's simple behavioural modification, you know?"

"I know," Anushka says.

_That_ is what she wanted to hear. Now she has enough evidence to arrest him. She signals to the hidden police officers waiting on the street below, and then clocks Viv upside the head with her shotgun in one fluid movement.

Nobody shoots people on Anushka's watch and gets away with it.

* * *

L squats on one of the office chairs and spins around, grinning.

"We diiiiid it," Matsuda chants. "We solved our first case as a proper team. Yaaaay."

"Triiiiilobyte," Connor says, mimicking Matsuda's tone without actually engaging with anyone in the room. "Yaaaay."

Naomi glances at Wedy, noting the tiny frown currently blemishing the thief's usually-perfect forehead.

_You're worried too_, she thinks.

Aiber claps both L and Matsuda on the back.

"There's many more to come," he says cheerily. "It's great, getting to work with you guys without horrible evil genocide-murderers in our midst."

"Quite," L says, smiling at him.

He glances at Naomi, clearly seeking her reaction, and Naomi feels even more uneasy.

_What happened to you?_

"There aren't any looming cases," she says. "I suggest we try and collect information on the local police force."

"Already broken into most of their homes," Wedy announces. "I can give you my files. Nothing particularly useful, though, as far as I'm concerned."

"Sounds good," L says, still smiling.

"I'm so glad to be naming cases again," Matsuda says. "I feel like it's my own little slice of fame."

"I'm glad to have you naming cases," L agrees, turning towards him. "I mean, I can't say I'm overly fond of some of your chosen names, but I am glad to have your input in general."

"This is _so _not the L I remember," Wedy mutters, right next to Naomi's ear.

"Yeah," Naomi breathes. "I'll talk to him."

It's about time they get things sorted out.

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n

+ thank you for reading

+ I'm sorry this chapter is so late. I'm having some real life issues at the minute, and I can't make any promises on the timing of the next update. I'm still motivated to write and wanting to write, I'm just really short on time and energy right now. but I promise I will definitely keep working on this fic and updating when I can. please bear with me.

+ to the people who are sending me anonymous messages berating me for not updating in time, please don't. if you need to complain, please at least log in so that I can respond to you and have a chance to apologise/explain myself etc. that said, if you are unhappy with any aspect of this fic, please feel free to browse ffn and find other, better, different fics to read. I am doing the best I can here. I appreciate all of my readers, but I understand that this fic isn't for everyone.


	5. Spy

notes/warnings

+ hi everyone, here is a new chapter.

+ forming alliances and strategising.

* * *

**Spy**

* * *

But things don't stay good. L's failure still weighs on her heavily, an undercurrent to everything. She finds herself looking for the cracks in Near's armour and predicting Near's eventual and similar downfall.

And without any distractions, she worries about the notebook page. She worries, and still she can do nothing.

Jas is miserable.

* * *

Gabriel Mills folds her arms over her elaborate oak desk. This is her second office, her _informal_ office. Very few people know about this place and those who do aren't police officers. They're spies, like Theo. Getting rid of annoying busybodies is a noble pursuit, especially when they're also geniuses. Theo approves.

"I've got a hook," he says, by way of greeting.

The back of his neck is clammy with sweat. Some people say that if you fail Gabriel Mills, you disappear. But those are only rumours, surely. She's the chief of police. She just likes to bend the rules a little.

Theo understands. He almost _likes_ his current assumed identity. He's actually having fun.

Gabriel stares at him. Her eyes are clear, and her bright red, curly hair is perfectly groomed. She looks every inch a chief. Theo is possibly a little bit in love with her.

"Good," she says, mildly. "What resources do you require?"

"Category E," Theo says, pushing a sheaf of paper across the desk. Gabriel examines it briefly, and then flicks it aside.

"That can be arranged," she tells him. "How much time do you need?"

"I can do it in three weeks."

"Outcomes?"

"I'll be able to hand you the woman herself. Or better."

Gabriel nods approvingly. Theo isn't sure what he was so nervous about.

"Done," she says. "Do not fail me."

Theo swaggers back out into the hall. He definitely, definitely won't fail her.

* * *

When they get back to the station, Daniels has changed the locks on Teru's locker _again_. Teru doesn't even care. He storms right past his locker, down the hall and into Stanton's office. Finding it empty, he turns on his heel, storms past the cells, ignores Edison, ignores Edison's little wave, and violently opens the door to the break room.

_No_, says the little voice inside his head. _No, you're too angry. _

_Stop._

_You're going to start deleting people again_.

But then it shuts up, because Stanton is in there, going over papers with fucking fucking Sergeant Marigold from Northwest, and even his conscience hates Stanton.

"Those kids were nearly killed," he says, blackly.

It's not what he wanted to say. He wanted to say something elegant, something eloquent, lawyer-perfect and damning. He isn't the same person as he was before, but he misses his old life.

"Constable Mikami, right?" Marigold asks. "Weren't you nearly arrested?"

Stanton doesn't say anything. She just stares at Mikami, as dead-eyed as ever.

"That doesn't matter," he snaps, trying to wave Marigold aside. She isn't part of this place. She _doesn't understand_. Southwest is a bag of defects. The old Teru would have killed everyone here with barely a second thought.

And without a moment's regret.

"It matters," Stanton says, voice dangerously quiet. "Had Mr Smythe pressed trespassing charges, you and Constable Butterscotch would have been permanently-"

"I don't _care_!" Teru yells. He slams his hand down on the table as hard as he can. Marigold flinches. Stanton doesn't react. "There were _two kids_ in that house. If…if not for a stray _goddamned_ cat they would both have been abducted. Our job is to protect people."

"Our job is to follow the rules," Stanton tells him, getting to her feet. "When you break the rules, you cease to be doing your job. Work health and safety codes do not allow officers to enter properties without a warrant. Recent studies show that forty percent of police injuries occur in unauthorised areas. And you could have-"

Teru closes his eyes against her monotonous tirade of stupidity.

"People will die," he says, suddenly exhausted. "People will die because of the way that you think."

Stanton fixes him with a glare that could demoralise an entire army.

"Then understand this," she says. "One, if I find that you have broken the rules again, you _will_ be suspended. And two, keep your opinions to yourself."

"Yes, ma'am," Teru says. If he had a notebook right now, there would be an entire page covered with the words 'Lydia' and 'Stanton', a thousand times. He would have her die a thousand deaths. He would have her die infinitely.

_No. That isn't how you should be thinking._

_You're going to hurt someone._

But if Stanton disappears, then who will tell him what to do?

Teru leaves the break room, feeling miserable and cornered. This is the price he pays for being a monster.

When he gets outside, Berkshire is waiting for him. Nobody else is around.

"Constable Mikami," Berkshire says, softly. "Please step into my office. I think we need to talk."

* * *

Connor spends a good five minutes staring at L, while munching aggressively on a rubber torvosaurus.

L feels good today. Aiber managed to sweet talk a local bakery into a standing pickup order of one thousand pastries per week. Matsuda is trying to play tennis against the wall and failing endearingly. Everything is easy, everything is going well.

"Hello," he says to Connor, crouching lower on the ground. "Can we be friends?"

Connor bursts into tears and runs sobbing into the next room, hands over his face.

L isn't actually great with children. But that's okay. He's good enough with plenty of other things. Or he's getting better at other things, at least. That's what Naomi said and that's what L is going to believe.

"I told you," Naomi says, from across the room. "Connor is shy around everyone except me. He doesn't even talk to Matsuda."

L cannot imagine not wanting to talk to Matsuda. Although…wasn't there a time when he couldn't stand how silly Matsuda was? Wasn't there a time when he was utilitarian to the downfall of all else?

Didn't he used to be a different person?

"How did you die?" Naomi asks, as if she can read his mind. "What happened to you after I left the second world?"

"Everything went on much the same," L says, evasively. "And I told you that I was stabbed."

Naomi nods thoughtfully.

"Look, I understand that you don't want to tell me everything," she says, grudgingly. "But I am worried about you."

L feels promptly and overwhelmingly defensive.

"You told me I was just out of practice," he points out.

"I'm not talking about your _skills_," Naomi says. "I'm talking about your attitude. Since when were you everyone's best friend?"

L tilts his head, uncertain as how to answer.

"Matsuda and I have been friends since the second world, and-"

"That's not really what I mean," Naomi says. "You're too soft, and you're too open. L, the entire police force is possibly against you, and you are making more enemies with every case. Somebody is going to get hurt."

L stares at his deputy. On some level, he feels deeply embarrassed. On some level he can imagine what his inner Near would have to say about him here, fawning over Matsuda and trying to befriend a child and ignoring one of the most dangerous villains in the world. But L smothered his inner Near to death the day that he found his team again.

_Well, don't look at me_, his inner Mello says. _You have literally no idea what I'm like. I'm not even sure why I exist._

The hell-god hinted that L's mother was in this world. L cannot ascertain how much of a danger she might be. Additionally, someone here has a page from Jas' notebook. And he cannot ignore the possibility that Light may one day return. So there are three significant enemies, and he has no idea how to track or defeat any of them. Any weakness he has might be used against him.

But then, when does he get to be human? When, if not now? Will he go on, eternally, always being his old persona, always hunted, never safe? When does he get to have a girlfriend or a hobby, or decide whether he wants kids?

"Leave me alone," he says, suddenly not wanting to talk to Naomi at all.

"But-"

"Nobody is going to get hurt," L tells her. "I'm going to go on like this, and I'm still going to protect everyone."

* * *

Sergeant Berkshire bolts the door firmly behind them.

"I'm going to be frank with you," he says, sucking in a deep breath. "We don't have very much time."

Constable Mikami wears his heart on his sleeve. His dislike of the chief of police is easily inferred. His dislike of Sergeant Stanton is an indisputable fact. And his support for L…well, that's enough to make him Berkshire's ally.

They want the same things, but the police force is a dangerous place. They say that people who go against the chief disappear. And Stanton is the chief's eyes and ears in the Southwest. They're walking on eggshells as it is.

Mikami stares at him with equal measures of fear and hope.

"I'll make this quick," Berkshire says, tugging at his moustache. "I think Mills has a vendetta against L. I want you to nod if you think the same thing."

Mikami nods rapidly. Berkshire has been over his office for bugs, and he's pretty damn good at making sure a room is secure. Still, it doesn't hurt to be careful. No point in getting both of them killed, if he's missed something.

Berkshire lives on the edge. He thrives on danger. He spent thirty years in the army in the second world. He cannot stand to see evil triumph, or to see freedom quashed. He cannot stand people like Lydia Stanton or Gabriel Mills, or that snake Ivan Daniels.

"I have a plan," Berkshire continues, softly. He's excited to share his thoughts with someone. He's excited to make progress. And he is relieved that he is not alone in the police force. "Stanton is Mills' mouthpiece, but she's more than that. I believe Mills trusts her, and that she is privy to important information."

"How long have you been researching this?" Mikami asks, sounding awed.

"Don't speak unless you need to," Berkshire warns. "While you were distracting her just then, I managed to place a single tap in Stanton's office. Under the door."

If Stanton is listening to this conversation, she'll remove the bug right now and he'll know immediately that this place isn't safe. He'll have some warning. Berkshire may not be a genius hero like L, but he's no fool either.

"I want you to help me by listening to the feed during your spare time when you're not at work," Berkshire continues. "If we learn anything, we can plan accordingly. We can try and intercept any efforts to capture L or his followers. And we can learn of any other noxious plans the officers might be hatching."

Mikami is still nodding, head bobbing desperately like he's been waiting for this is whole life. Good.

"This is a dangerous venture," Berkshire continues. "If we are caught, we may not even be given a trial. I don't know what will happen. If you don't wish to be involved, please leave now."

Mills is the most powerful person in England. And Stanton is a crack shot with a pistol. But if they're considered to be enough of a threat, they won't be treated to a quick and painless gunshot death.

Berkshire wants to be enough of a threat. He wants to make a damn difference.

"I want to be involved," Mikami says, thickly. "I want to…please let me help you."

"I told you not to speak," Berkshire says, irritably.

"We're in this together," Mikami says, eagerly. "Just tell me what to do, and I'll do it."

Berkshire smiles broadly.

"All right," he agrees. "Let's do this."

* * *

[Fivenine] – _are you there, my darling?_

[Goldilocks] – _don't call me darling, it's creepy. I hardly even know you._

[Fivenine] – _sorry. Listen, I think I've found out a way to get a hold of one of L's agents._

[Goldilocks] – _then do it. Come back to me when you have results._

[Goldilocks] – _are you sure none of the others will work against you?_

[Fivenine] – _eh, it's too small a scale for Hangman to get involved, Volution won't care, and I don't know anything about Nocks._

[Goldilocks] – _find out about Nocks._

[Fivenine] – _I can't. Nobody knows anything about Nocks. _

[Goldilocks] – _ugh, whatever. You had better not let me down._

[Fivenine] – _never, my love._

[Fivenine] – _hey, will I get to meet you in person after this?_

/Goldilocks has signed out.

* * *

That scumbag, Mikami, has been sticking to Berkshire's side like a suckling calf. Right when Daniels was poised to get him fired, too.

Ivan Daniels does _not_ like Mikami. Ivan has been a police constable for the last thirty years. He can tell whether people are innocent or criminal just by their smell. And Mikami practically reeks of criminality.

The last thing this world needs is a criminal in the esteemed police force.

But Berkshire isn't as easy as Stanton. Berkshire is clever, and intuitive, and he has been guarding Mikami carefully.

Daniels doesn't want any trouble. He needs to leave Mikami alone.

For now.

* * *

"So what was Aiber's role in your team?" L asks Naomi. "Does he still function primarily as a confidence trickster?"

"Yes," Naomi replies. "When there aren't any cases, we use his skills to obtain any equipment we might need without a paper trail."

"Which is good, since we can't really get things delivered here," Matsuda pipes up.

L has noticed that they don't get anything delivered.

"Is it really so unsafe?" he wonders.

"It's not just unsafe," Naomi says. "When I was trying to find a place for the new headquarters, I already had an inkling that you would have powerful enemies here. Although we're close to the city, our current building is actually on military-owned land. Locals know the area quite well, of course, but the place is a network of similar-looking roads. The road we're situated on literally has no name, and can only be identified from the surrounding roads by marking it on a map."

"That way it's more difficult for me to accidentally tell anyone where we are," Matsuda sings out.

Naomi smiles, but the smile disappears from her face when she turns back to L. She's still unhappy with him.

L just wants things to go back to the way they were before.

But _he_ doesn't want to go back to the way he was before. All he has left of Rae is the changes that Rae made to his life. And L is not willing to give those up.

"Well, that wasn't the only reason," Naomi says. "But you can see how it's useful."

"Very useful," L says. "You did very well setting everything up in my absence."

"Thank you," Naomi replies, politely.

* * *

"Northwest is led by Sergeant Maryanne Marigold," Wedy deadpans. "She was only recently promoted from Deputy-Sergeant. The security in her house is above average, but there is no other evidence that she's particularly paranoid. She will occasionally disregard orders from higher up, but only if they compromise the safety of her officers. She hasn't shown any inclination of supporting L, so we should consider her an enemy for now."

"Still," L says, examining the single, grainy photograph of Marigold that Wedy managed to procure. "It sounds as if both of the sergeants at Northwest are reasonable people, so we may be able to persuade them to help us if necessary."

"Maybe," Wedy says, doubtfully. "But a lot of people are scared of Gabriel Mills. Do you want to hear about her next, or Southwest?"

"Southwest," L says, decisively. "Then the chief."

Naomi smiles to herself, and continues scouring the international news on her laptop. Wedy is an incredible resource, and she can obtain information on just about anyone. And Naomi is glad to see that L is using his down-time wisely. Sooner or later the police force is going to cause them serious trouble, and they don't have a single viable ally to help them.

_Anushka, maybe_, Naomi thinks. _Anushka showed promise._

"Kylie Butterscotch," Wedy tells L, gesturing to a picture of a young blonde woman with a big smile and a butch haircut. "Naïve, idealistic, and willing to bend the rules if pressured."

"That's useful," L murmurs.

Yesterday, Wedy and Naomi exchanged a few more words. Wedy is concerned by L's refusal to guard his own vulnerabilities, and Naomi doesn't blame her. As long as he remains this soft, someone is going to hurt him. It's only a matter of who and how and _how soon_?

_We have to protect him, then_, Wedy had said, as if delivering an undeniable truth. _If he's going to be an idiot about it, then we have to make up for his shortcomings._

_Yes_, Naomi had replied.

Of course, Wedy has her own weaknesses. So does Naomi. Everyone has weaknesses, but L has too many for someone who is such a huge target. In the third world, it is common knowledge that L defeated Kira. L isn't just a famous figure, he's an ideology. Everyone knows about L.

"Ivan Daniels," Wedy says, pointing at a photograph of a sneering, hook-nosed man. "Deputy Sergeant at Southwest, a proud bigot who believes he can identify criminals by their appearance. Unpleasant, but easy to fool if you play into his ego."

"Also useful to know," L says, smiling openly at Wedy. "Can we use him to get to his superior?"

"Absolutely not," Wedy replies, gesturing towards a fourth picture with the end of her cigarette. "Sergeant Lydia Stanton, professional brick wall. Law-abiding to the point of obstructive, and direct minion of Gabriel Mills. If an order comes from the top, Stanton will see it executed. Interestingly, I couldn't actually get inside her house. She has a custom security system but her guard dog practically licked my face. I suspect she's been set up by someone else to be well protected, but she isn't particularly skilled at protecting herself."

Naomi has been through all of this with Wedy months ago, of course. She knows the details of the local police officers. She's seen the photographs, although they are so grainy and vague as to be almost useless.

"So she cannot be reasoned with, but she can possibly be fooled," L surmises. "Wedy, this is all excellent work."

"I know," Wedy replies.

Naomi scrolls idly. There has been a spate of small-scale thefts in northern London. The thief always seems to target rich people, but only ever seems to steal portable computers. It's an odd operation, but not necessarily one that requires L. Naomi will monitor it over the next few days.

L and Wedy are still discussing police officers.

"The other Southwest sergeant is a man called Bernard Berkshire," Wedy says. "Military history, strong morals, well-liked by his colleagues. His stance on L is unknown, but I suspect that he would be swayed if we made a good case."

"And the last one?" L asks.

"Teru Mikami," Wedy says.

For a moment, neither of them speak.

"This is the same Teru Mikami who worked for Kira in the first world?" L enquires, cautiously.

"Yes," Wedy says. "Matsuda is certain that it's him. He's a paranoid, confused person, but judging from things I found around his home, he openly supports you."

"I don't like that," L says, chewing on his thumb. "I have had nothing to do with him. He must be trying to find me as a way to get to Light."

"Light's in hell," Naomi interrupts, loudly. "He isn't coming back."

She can't have L wallowing in fear, or panicking. They all need to believe that Light will never come back. Because Light _is_ never coming back.

"But is Mikami sure of that?" L asks. "Either way, I don't want to liaise with Mikami. If we need to infiltrate the police, Berkshire and Butterscotch are our best bets. Wedy, what do you know about the chief of police? Don't tell me you managed to break in to her house?"

"I'm not game to try," Wedy says. "She's the driving force behind the ban on associating with you. She was promoted to the top job a few months ago, despite the fact that she was only enrolled with the police about a month before that. She's very efficient, and has a number of rumours surrounding her."

"What sort of rumours?" L wonders.

"People who don't comply with her disappearing," Naomi supplies. "The usual sorts of rumours that are circulated around powerful women who aren't immediately warm and welcoming."

"Either way," Wedy says, "her security is too good for me to trifle with, unless specifically needed. There's a good chance I'd be caught."

L nods.

"Leave her alone for now," he says. "I don't need you putting yourself at risk with a metaphorical bounty on your head. Naomi, did you find any cases?"

Naomi closes her computer.

"Nothing solid yet," she answers.

It's been a slow day.

* * *

Teru's house is bare and utilitarian. He owns a bookcase, a table, a single chair, and a bed. He doesn't have use for anything else.

He sits down at the table and opens the laptop. It's not _his_ laptop, it's a cheap model with no registration and no internet connection. If questioned, he could feasibly claim to have never seen it before.

Sergeant Berkshire thinks of everything. Teru feels a rush of warmth at the mere thought of his new mentor. These past few days, Teru has had both guidance and purpose, and he had thought he would never experience both things at once ever again. But now he doesn't _have_ to adhere to Stanton's pointless rules, nor does he have to resign to Light's chaotic goals. Because there is someone in the world who agrees with him, and is also undeniably _good_.

Teru opens up a nondescript audio program. If everything has worked correctly, he is about to be privy to every word ever said in the privacy of Stanton's office.

Initially, the recording is of nothing but background noise, and Teru waits, heart in his throat. Then he hears a voice crackle to life.

_The recording started at three o'clock,_ he thinks. _That means it must be around three thirteen at the time of this conversation._

Teru has a near-perfect internal clock.

"My sincere apologies for missing your call," Stanton deadpans. "I've just returned from a meeting."

The background noise changes in quality. Someone else is speaking, but the tap isn't strong enough to pick up the voice on the other end of the phone.

"Yes, Chief," Stanton says, with probably as much emphasis as she can manage. "Of course. I have been keeping a close eye on Berkshire and Marigold as per your instructions."

Teru feels as if his insides have turned to ice.

* * *

Matsuda tugs gently at a lock of hair dangling from his spiky blond wig. Lady Irforth refused to go into detail over the phone, so he's visiting her in person and in disguise.

"You're not what I expected from an employee of L," Irforth says, staring at him critically.

"I'm a contractor," Matsuda lies. "Besides, L is well aware of the current situation with the police. If you made contact with anyone suspicious, you'd be in trouble. Do I seem suspicious to you?"

He already knows the answer to that, of course. Matsuda is a patented, obvious idiot. He's never really tried to deny that fact, and he's glad he can use it to be of some use to L. He's glad to have L back. He's glad for everything really; they are all together and the world is a beautiful place and they might even have a new case to solve.

He feels a pang of guilt when the phrase 'all together' crosses his mind. He thinks of Raye Penber, who was more of a father-figure than Matsuda's own stepfather, and the absolute broken shambles of a human being who was Mail Jeevas. He hopes they both catch up soon.

"No," Irforth says, smiling blandly. "You seem ordinary."

Matsuda is super ordinary. He's literally like most other people in the world. L could replace him in a heartbeat, but L never does.

So then, he isn't ordinary. He's lucky.

"You said you were having some trouble with thieves."

Irforth sinks gracefully onto a plush chair, and motions for Matsuda to do the same. A large chinchilla cat appears from nowhere and curls up on her lap, purring arrhythmically.

"I speak for myself and several others," she begins. "This has happened at least three times to my knowledge; once to me, once to my cousin, and once to a distant acquaintance. A sophisticated burglar disables the alarm system remotely somehow, and then enters the house and steals a single item."

Matsuda glances around, at the diamond-encrusted crockery and the expensive paintings on display. Then he turns back to Irforth.

"But-" he begins.

"Why not steal anything else?" Irforth finishes. "Why not steal anything of value? I have wondered the same thing. And the saga becomes more puzzling; after my laptop was stolen, I took measures to ensure the security of my bank accounts. Despite employing some of the best technicians available, two days later, ten thousand dollars was taken from my accounts."

"Of course," Matsuda says. "That's what the laptop was for! Hacking!"

"Where did L hire you?" Irforth wonders. "Is there a place that rents out ditzes? Ten thousand dollars is nothing. In my fortune, it's barely worth noticing. That's why the others didn't report the same thing happening to them. A robbery, and such a small loss? They were relieved."

"But you weren't," Matsuda observes.

"I fear whoever did this still has access to our accounts," Irforth concludes. "They can break even the best online security. I sense this is the beginning of a spate of crime, and I fear the worst is yet to come. I will pay L handsomely to resolve this issue without alerting the police. All the information I have is in this dossier."

Irforth produces a large file from beneath the table and hands it to Matsuda. Then she looks at him expectantly until he realises that they're done.

"L will be in touch to discuss the details," he says, bouncing to his feet. "Thank you, Lady Irforth."

"Don't let me down," she replies, sternly, by way of a goodbye.

* * *

"Aren't you worried?" Teru asks, fighting down the urge to wring his hands.

"Not at all," Berkshire replies. "If Stanton had any proof, she'd have mentioned it. It's only natural for Mills to ask her to keep an eye on the other Sergeants. And now we have proof that the two of them are in cahoots."

"I suppose," Teru says, doubtfully. "But please, be careful."

"We'll always be careful," Berkshire promises.

* * *

tbc

* * *

a/n

+ thank you for reading.

+ my real life is still incredibly busy and will probably remain so for the rest of the year. updates will be sporadic and may be months apart.

+ BUT I am definitely continuing with this fic and writing in my (meagre) spare time. TTL will definitely get finished, it's just going to take a little while.

+ that said, thank you for your patience.


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